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Problems with the menu bar

E

erickg

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 4, 2004
327
0
A few hours ago, I had to force my iBook to shut down because it was beachballing continuously for over 5 minutes. I restarted the computer and everything worked fine, except for the menu bar. For some reason nothing is showing up in the menu bar, while I normally have an icon for bluetooth, airport, the time, fast user switching and spotlight. While the look is very clean, I would really like these back. Any ideas on how?

The funny thing is, the same thing happened to my Mac mini a few days ago. This was after a regular restart. The only difference in the menu bar is that the Salling Clicker icon still shows, but it's otherwise empty.
 
Try removing/renaming/deleting the ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.systemuiserver.###.plist

If that don't help we need to apply the usual mumbo jumbo™.
 
Thanks for the quick response!

I renamed the file you said and logged out and in again. Still no menu bar and OS X didn't even create a new such file. :(

I just browsed through some other posts and it was mentioned that you could remove items from the menu bar by going into System/Library/CoreServices/Finder/Contents/Resources and opening the menu file. For some reason, this file doesn't even seem to exist on my iBook. Do you think it would help to copy the Finder file from my wife's and replace mine with that one?
 
erickg said:
I renamed the file you said and logged out and in again. Still no menu bar and OS X didn't even create a new such file. :(
Click to expand...
Hmm... did you try to manually add some of the menu bar items after the login...?

erickg said:
Do you think it would help to copy the Finder file from my wife's and replace mine with that one?
Click to expand...
That doesn't sound like a good idea... the problem is much more likely to lie elsewhere... if you cannot fix it by the usual mumbo jumbo™: Removing pref files, repairing permissions, etc, etc, then an Archive and Install might be the best remedy... :)
 
Unfortunately, it didn't work to add them manually either. Which preference files should I remove before repairing permissions?

Archive and Install seems to be the most likely solution at the moment. The only worrying thing to me is that it happened on both my iBook and Mac mini at almost exactly the same time.

Thanks again for all your help Mitthrawnuruodo!
 
erickg said:
Unfortunately, it didn't work to add them manually either. Which preference files should I remove before repairing permissions?
Click to expand...
Well, you've already tried the obvious one... repairing permissions is quite harmless and can be tried at any time, really (it's not often it helps, but it had happened ;)).

One thing to try is to log into another user account on your Mac (make one if you have to) and see it the problems still occur in that account (that way we know there's something wrong with your user account and not the system).
 
Logged into another user account and the problem persists. Currently repairing permissions, but it looks like an archive and install, doesn't it?
 
As long as you have enough space to do the A&I, I think that will be the easiest option, yes.

Remember to back up your most important/irreplaceable files before the install, just in case... :)
 
I'll try that this evening or maybe tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm working on something important at the moment, so I'll have to do without the menu bar for a while.

Thanks again for all of your help.
 
So, did an archive and install and everything is fine and dandy once again. And you're absolutely right quigleybc, it must have been the frontrow hack that did it. Wanted to try it out to see if it was all it was made out to be and see if I wanted to upgrade my mini to a new intel one, I guess that'll teach me. :p I've come to realize how much I appreciate the items on my menu bar.

Thanks again for your help troubleshooting Mitthrawnuruodo!
 
LOL! Yeah... I certainly learned my lesson. I'm glad it's working out for other "people's" cpu's though. I think I'll just wait until Apple brings out the Macbook before I start playing with Front Row again. *crosses fingers for next Tuesday*
 
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