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Automatically hide and show menu bar bug - seriously?

jimbojoho

jimbojoho

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 14, 2025
16
33
London, UK
I hide my dock, as well as my menu bar to get a fully fullscreen experience, worked flawlessly on Sequoia. But I wanted to upgrade to Tahoe because a sound interface I use (RME UFX III) apparently runs better on it (audio stutters on Sequoia, had to run in Class Compliant Mode).

But I get this HORRENDOUS bug when I go to show the menu bar, it like doesn't display correctly, and only a portion of it shows, like the bottom 1/8th, making it completely useless. It even sometimes just tries to show the text in the menu bar, without a background, on top of my light mode safari window, which makes the menu items completely unreadable.

If I go into settings and turn on "Show menu bar background" it just turns it black which I don't like the look of.

Tried restarting my machine, didn't fix it.

Seems like, at least for me, a quite annoying bug that wasn't caught :(
 
jimbojoho said:
I hide my dock, as well as my menu bar to get a fully fullscreen experience, worked flawlessly on Sequoia. But I wanted to upgrade to Tahoe because a sound interface I use (RME UFX III) apparently runs better on it (audio stutters on Sequoia, had to run in Class Compliant Mode).

But I get this HORRENDOUS bug when I go to show the menu bar, it like doesn't display correctly, and only a portion of it shows, like the bottom 1/8th, making it completely useless. It even sometimes just tries to show the text in the menu bar, without a background, on top of my light mode safari window, which makes the menu items completely unreadable.

If I go into settings and turn on "Show menu bar background" it just turns it black which I don't like the look of.

Tried restarting my machine, didn't fix it.

Seems like, at least for me, a quite annoying bug that wasn't caught :(
Click to expand...
are other ppl reporting this? otherwise, not a bug, just an issue with your setup... in which case,might be worth starting a thread, and asking for help.

try moving the dock to another side of the screen, resizing it. try a few things to see if anything helps. you can google the terminal command to quit the dock, that might help too....
 
oops i shouldn't post before morning coffee 🙄
am assuming you've rebooted. try changing your wallpaper. try changing your screen resolution, then back again. and also, consider starting a thread so others can help.
 
your gpu? so far, tahoe's gpu drivers are not good, for me glass effect is artifacting on uhd630 / 5700xt combo
 
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Also happens on the Macs at the Apple Store 🥲

IMG_6358.jpeg
 
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Do you have “Show menu bar background” on or off? Maybe toggling it will do something.
 
01cowherd said:
Do you have “Show menu bar background” on or off? Maybe toggling it will do something.
Click to expand...
Yeh that was the first thing I tried, sometimes the menu bar goes black, sometimes it shows a portion of the wallpaper, sometimes it seems to work as expected, but it's never consistent.

This was also the same case on the Macs in the store.
 
I've experienced this too. Plenty of complaints and proposed solutions have been posted. The most workable, but hardly perfect, answer for me has been to turn Reduce transparency off and Show menu bar background on. Try all 4 combinations of these two controls and see what it does for you.

It’s difficult to believe Apple released such a shoddy implementation.
 
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John Frum said:
I've experienced this too. Plenty of complaints and proposed solutions have been posted. The most workable, but hardly perfect, answer for me has been to turn Reduce transparency off and Show menu bar background on. Try all 4 combinations of these two controls and see what it does for you.

It’s difficult to believe Apple released such a shoddy implementation.
Click to expand...
right, except it's not a universal issue, it's a problem some are having.

if it were happening to me, i'd start looking for common denominators with ppl on the forum with the issue (ie common hardware, apps, tweaks) and see if you can sort it out.
 
jimbojoho said:
I hide my dock, as well as my menu bar to get a fully fullscreen experience, worked flawlessly on Sequoia. But I wanted to upgrade to Tahoe because a sound interface I use (RME UFX III) apparently runs better on it (audio stutters on Sequoia, had to run in Class Compliant Mode).

But I get this HORRENDOUS bug when I go to show the menu bar, it like doesn't display correctly, and only a portion of it shows, like the bottom 1/8th, making it completely useless. It even sometimes just tries to show the text in the menu bar, without a background, on top of my light mode safari window, which makes the menu items completely unreadable.

If I go into settings and turn on "Show menu bar background" it just turns it black which I don't like the look of.

Tried restarting my machine, didn't fix it.

Seems like, at least for me, a quite annoying bug that wasn't caught :(
Click to expand...
maybe it's just me, I am an Apple beta tester and have had no issues, but you can go into appearance in the control center and select default in icon and widget display and will return to what you are accustomed to. attached is before and after. if the entire dock is not showing you need to adjust your display setting.
 

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I think I see a clue. In both of the OPs videos, that he has a window tucked up against the top of the screen. On my machine, Tahoe won't permit me to place a window into the area occupied by the menu bar, whether it's hidden or not.
 
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John Frahm said:
maybe it's just me, I am an Apple beta tester and have had no issues, but you can go into appearance in the control center and select default in icon and widget display and will return to what you are accustomed to. attached is before and after. if the entire dock is not showing you need to adjust your display setting.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your help, but it was specifically the Menu Bar I was having difficulty with.

As I mentioned, I also recreated the issue on a Mac in the Apple Store... exact same issue/artifact.
 
jimbojoho said:
Thanks for your help, but it was specifically the Menu Bar I was having difficulty with.

As I mentioned, I also recreated the issue on a Mac in the Apple Store... exact same issue/artifact.
Click to expand...
Any comment on my observation above (#18)? What settings do you have that lets you put windows at the top of the screen? If you return them to default I think your menu display problem might go away.
 
chabig said:
Any comment on my observation above (#18)? What settings do you have that lets you put windows at the top of the screen? If you return them to default I think your menu display problem might go away.
Click to expand...
No other setting has changed, I simply just hide the Manu bar and it lets me use the whole screen - exactly what I did on the Macs in the store.

Something I noticed though is that when I don't hide the menu bar, and try to make my window full screen, the top of the window actually appears behind the menu bar... weird.

But I definitely don't have any 3rd party plugins/software installed to enable this... as I mentioned, was easy to replicate on the store Macs.
 
chabig said:
Any comment on my observation above (#18)? What settings do you have that lets you put windows at the top of the screen? If you return them to default I think your menu display problem might go away.
Click to expand...
The whole point of auto hiding the menu is your window can use that part of the screen?
 
thebart said:
The whole point of auto hiding the menu is your window can use that part of the screen?
Click to expand...
Maybe my settings are non-standard then. On my Mac, auto hide simply hides the menu bar. But it still reserves that space, and won't let me place windows up there.
 
I think I know why I don't see the misbehavior. I'm running Tahoe on a MacBook Air. The portable machines with notches don't allow placing windows in the menu bar area on either side of the notch. I think the OP is using a desktop machine or external display without an embedded camera. That's how he is able to place windows at the top of the screen.
 
chabig said:
I think I know why I don't see the misbehavior. I'm running Tahoe on a MacBook Air. The portable machines with notches don't allow placing windows in the menu bar area on either side of the notch. I think the OP is using a desktop machine or external display without an embedded camera. That's how he is able to place windows at the top of the screen.
Click to expand...
Yes, using a Mac Studio with external display (obviously). I recreated the issue on another Mac Studio with a Studio Display in the store. Makes sense why you can't do this with the Macs that have a notch... I'm going back into town today, will give it another test.
 
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