rMBP -2014 Yosemite - disappearing menu icons- other strange behavior

[Weiler]

Bought a new 15 inch rMBP last November. Running the latest version of Yosemite with all necessary updates. Also installed FCPX, Logic and some other Mac apps. About 2 weeks ago I turned on my computer and noticed after several minutes the menu bar clock was frozen in time. It was about 5 minutes behind. Clicked on the menu bar clock and the clock and several icons to the left disappeared. Rebooted and the same problem. Repaired all disk permissions, flashed the PRAM several times, ran Apple diagnostics using the internet and fiddled with time/date settings in System settings and still the same problem. One additional problem is that my external hard drive gets disconnected if I slightly "bump" the Apple thunderbolt cable. Took it in to an Apple store. They ran the hardware diagnostics tests. No problems. Had them wipe the computer clean and reinstall Yosemite. The clock worked. No problems. Took it home and did a reinstall of all data from an external hard drive using Time Machine. Sure enough the menu bar clock problem reappeared.....aggghhhh! I wiped the computer clean again and reinstalled Yosemite. No disappearing icons from the menu bar and the clock keeps time. New problem....Finder displays both English titles and Japanese titles mixed in the same left hand column. I have run Bitdefender and Sophos antivirus/malware check software on both internal data and external HD data. Nothing found. What the heck is going on with my machine? Took it back to Apple again. They will replace the logic board next week. I have been using Macs for over ten years now. I have a feature length documentary (over 5 hours of footage from several countries) to edit down to 45 minutes. I am losing confidence in this machine. If the logic board doesn't fix this ghost in the machine what should I do? Very perplexed!

 

[yjchua95]

Bought a new 15 inch rMBP last November. Running the latest version of Yosemite with all necessary updates. Also installed FCPX, Logic and some other Mac apps. About 2 weeks ago I turned on my computer and noticed after several minutes the menu bar clock was frozen in time. It was about 5 minutes behind. Clicked on the menu bar clock and the clock and several icons to the left disappeared. Rebooted and the same problem. Repaired all disk permissions, flashed the PRAM several times, ran Apple diagnostics using the internet and fiddled with time/date settings in System settings and still the same problem. One additional problem is that my external hard drive gets disconnected if I slightly "bump" the Apple thunderbolt cable. Took it in to an Apple store. They ran the hardware diagnostics tests. No problems. Had them wipe the computer clean and reinstall Yosemite. The clock worked. No problems. Took it home and did a reinstall of all data from an external hard drive using Time Machine. Sure enough the menu bar clock problem reappeared.....aggghhhh! I wiped the computer clean again and reinstalled Yosemite. No disappearing icons from the menu bar and the clock keeps time. New problem....Finder displays both English titles and Japanese titles mixed in the same left hand column. I have run Bitdefender and Sophos antivirus/malware check software on both internal data and external HD data. Nothing found. What the heck is going on with my machine? Took it back to Apple again. They will replace the logic board next week. I have been using Macs for over ten years now. I have a feature length documentary (over 5 hours of footage from several countries) to edit down to 45 minutes. I am losing confidence in this machine. If the logic board doesn't fix this ghost in the machine what should I do? Very perplexed!

First, you could start by learning how to write in paragraphs and coherent sentences.

I've also experienced disappearing menu bar elements; but it's easily fixed by simply clicking on where the menu bar elements would normally be.

 

[Weiler]

First, you could start by learning how to write in paragraphs and coherent sentences.

I've also experienced disappearing menu bar elements; but it's easily fixed by simply clicking on where the menu bar elements would normally be.

Please tell me more about the problem you had with disappearing menu bar icons. When, what OS X, any other strange behavior?

 

[yjchua95]

Please tell me more about the problem you had with disappearing menu bar icons. When, what OS X, any other strange behavior?

Only with Yosemite.

Oh, and also some random KPs caused by some rogue kexts from Symantec (everyone knows Symantec products suck, but my company insists on it), but other than that Yosemite is fine.

 

[Weiler]

rMBP - Yosemite - disappearing menu icons -other strange behavior

Here are a couple of screenshots. Notice the Japanese language on the left hand side on the bottom of the Finder window. Of all the years I have used Macs with dual language input settings I have never seen this. Ghost in my machine. Frustrating!

 

[maflynn]

ITs hard to discern your issues from that wall of text.

From the screen shots you have the Japanese language installed, did you try removing that to see if that solves the problem.

Did you try to reformat and clean install the OS?

 

[Weiler]

ITs hard to discern your issues from that wall of text.

From the screen shots you have the Japanese language installed, did you try removing that to see if that solves the problem.

Did you try to reformat and clean install the OS?

Hi Maflynn. Thanks for your response. For business and personal use I need both English and Japanese languages enable in system settings. Deleting the Japanese language setting may reset the Finder menu but then I will be unable to use Japanese on my computer.

As I wrote in my initial post I had Apple reformat and do a clean install. I also wiped the computer 3 times then did a clean install. Still the computer seems confused as to what to display. Yes, that is a very simplified explanation of what is happening in the computer. I have run 3 different companies virus/malware software and nothing has been found. It is going back in for a logic board replacement this week. We'll see what happens.

 

[Johnlpi]

I noticed your problems recur after you re-install from that external HD.

Have you run a virus scan on that external HD?

 

[maflynn]

Hi Maflynn. Thanks for your response. For business and personal use I need both English and Japanese languages enable in system settings. Deleting the Japanese language setting may reset the Finder menu but then I will be unable to use Japanese on my computer.

Try removing Japanese for the time being and confirm that it does fix the issue. Then later on, re-add it, and see of deleting/re-adding the language helps.

If trying to do a clean install 3x times, and having apple do a clean install failed to correct the issue. I'm inclined to say that its a bug in Yosemite. Your 2014 MBP may be capable of running Mavericks, I'd look into that viability of that as a possible solution. Its not like you have anything to lose at this point.

 

[Weiler]

I noticed your problems recur after you re-install from that external HD.

Have you run a virus scan on that external HD?

Hi Johnlpi.
Thanks for your response.
Yes, I have run Bitdefender, Sophos and ClamXav on both the internal HD and external HDs. None of the 3 software packages found any malware/virus.

A couple of people I spoke with recently mentioned that if my data had a virus/malware it shouldn't cause the menu bar from losing some of the icons and causing the menu bar clock to stop. When I checked date created time/date stamps it was keeping time accurately for newly created files. Just the menu bar clock was frozen then when clicked on disappeared.

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Try removing Japanese for the time being and confirm that it does fix the issue. Then later on, re-add it, and see of deleting/re-adding the language helps.

If trying to do a clean install 3x times, and having apple do a clean install failed to correct the issue. I'm inclined to say that its a bug in Yosemite. Your 2014 MBP may be capable of running Mavericks, I'd look into that viability of that as a possible solution. Its not like you have anything to lose at this point.

Thank you Maflynn.
Going to delete the Japanese language setting for now. Flash the PRAM and see what happens. May go back to Mavericks soon.

As a newbie on this forum, but not to Macs, I am grateful for the quick, kind support here!

 

[Weiler]

rMBP -2014 Yosemite - disappearing menu icons- other strange behavior

Got my MBP back from Apple today. The logic board was replaced. Got home and turned it on. Seemed to work fine until I did a reinstall using a Time Machine backup. Then the strange menu bar flickering problem started again. Aggghhhh!
I suspected replacing the logic board wouldn't fix the problem.

But, I finally got the answer on the Apple forum. It was a corrupted plist file in the system Library folder.

Here is the solution to a problem that plagued me for 2 weeks.


From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder
Type or copy paste the following; ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
Click Go then move the com.apple.systemuiserver.plist file to the Trash.
Restart your Mac. See if that made a difference.


Followed these instructions and sure enough it resolved the problem!!

Finally a computer that is working properly.

 

[Johnlpi]

Well of all damned things....glad you got it working again!

I can remember when we had to chase out conflicting INITs in Mac OS; now it's plist files.

I guess the old saying is true: "the more things change, the more they stay the same"