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Menu Bar Not Updating

T

TTD

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
32
2
Hi, firstly, hope this is the right section to post this in! I've had a search on here and google and haven't been able to find the problem I'm trying to fix.

The last few days i've found that the menu bar (at the top of the screen) doesn't always change to show the application I'm currently using. So say i've got itunes and firefox open, i go to firefox from itunes and it will still show itunes in the menu bar and i normally have to hide and then show firefox for the menu to update..

I use this mac for design so use photoshop, illustrator, indesign, flash basically everyday and so far haven't had any problems. And this seems to happen when im using safari and firefox mainly, switching between everything else seems to be fine. I haven't updated these and it's getting to be a pain having to hide/show everytime I switch windows..

Basically i'm running Leopard 10.5.8 on a 24 iMac 2.4ghz 4gb ram, has the mac since Jan 09, bought the SL upgrade back in October but still haven't used it (as I've been worried about the problems with cs3 and cant afford to lose the programs I use everyday..), maybe its worth upgrading?

Only other thing I can think of is I setup time machine on an external drive and i plug in about once a day for a backup, but don't think this would effect browsers?

Sorry for the long post, any help would be great!
 
Thanks for the quick reply!

Gregg2 said:
Why not? (Assuming you mean to the latest versions of the troubled applications.)
Click to expand...

Sorry, by that I meant I didn't update them and then get this problem. Safari's the most current release, but i've just realized firefox isn't, so will try updating that now, thanks!
 
Updated firefox to the latest version and it hasn't fixed. Did a tidyup with onyx but that hasn't done anything either, and i'm running an anti-virus scan just to check :confused: I just don't understand while it only does it with Safari and Firefox.. all the 'heavy' programs, ie CS3 suite, office, itunes, all don't have the problem.
 
10.5.8 here too

You don't have a virus, and don't need an anti-virus app to tell you that. There are none for the Mac OS.

TTD said:
I just don't understand while it only does it with Safari and Firefox.. all the 'heavy' programs, ie CS3 suite, office, itunes, all don't have the problem.
Click to expand...
That's the real puzzle. If it was more widespread, I'd suspect the finder or desktop plist file. Seems weird to try, but go for the safari and firefox plist files:
com.apple.Safari.plist
org.mozilla.firefox.plist

Found in Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences
Move them to the Desktop at first, then fire up the browsers. This will cause new ones to be created, since it looks for them and they don't show up.
If all is well, you can Trash the files you put on the Desktop.

Next: log in under a different user account
 
Again, thanks for the help.

I tried moving the plists but unfortunately didn't solve it.

Turned on guest account on that and it all worked fine, menu changed to whatever program I was using!

(I also noticed when I went into system preferences to turn the account on I noticed when I switched to itunes and then back to system preferences that the menu didn't update fir that either.)

So I guess it's something to do with this account as the other was fine.
 
This happens to me every few weeks too. It's easily fixed by pressing command+tab (+tab+tab) to select the application with the active menu bar, then again to switch back to the app you want to use. Bit annoying, though. I wouldn't mind having a fix for it.
 
TTD said:
So I guess it's something to do with this account as the other was fine.
Click to expand...

When you can't pinpoint the problem to a specific element of the account, then you have to decide if it's annoying enough to you so that abandoning the corrupt account is worth the hassle. You have to be careful not to lose things in that account. Mac Help has some good info on setting up accounts and switching. Have a look at that, as it could help you decide.
 
Thanks again! Ok, I'll have a look at some guides and decide.
 
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