JeremyG_

Q: flickering menu bar in mavericks

I recently upgraded to OS X Mavericks.  When at least 1 additional monitor is connected, I've noticed (and see other postings about this) that the inactive menu bar constantly flickers.  This happens when I am using my macbook pro with retina display + a HD-connected external monitor, and it also happens when I'm using two thunderbolt displays (but not using the macbook pro monitor).  I haven't seen any solutions posted, but I thought I'd mention that the problem disappeared when I switched to a default wallpaper.  I had previously had iPhoto pictures as the desktop, but I switched to a default desktop photo in the "Apple \ Desktop Pictures" folder that was white at the top so I wouldn't notice the flickering as much.  All of the sudden - no more flickering.

 

If this was just a coincidence or if someone knows why, I'm curious to know.  Thanks!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 6:46 AM

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Q: flickering menu bar in mavericks

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  • by buzzaldrin71,

    buzzaldrin71 buzzaldrin71 Nov 5, 2013 7:17 AM in response to DanielKilback
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2013 7:17 AM in response to DanielKilback

    Turning Google drive off worked for me. No flickering the last hour.

    Tack Daniel!

  • by braschultz,

    braschultz braschultz Nov 5, 2013 7:21 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2013 7:21 AM in response to JeremyG_

    I quit out of Google drive and my flickering stopped too.  So I assume that is the problem.

  • by Campitor,

    Campitor Campitor Nov 5, 2013 7:32 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2013 7:32 AM in response to JeremyG_

    I quit google drive too and flickering stopped. No flickering for 1/2 hour. Just to add another name to the list.

     

    Is this Apple or Google's fault?

     

    Given the crappy performance I've gotten from Maverick, I'm leaning towards Apple.    

  • by derekthecat,

    derekthecat derekthecat Nov 5, 2013 7:06 PM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2013 7:06 PM in response to JeremyG_

    I'm not using google drive but still have the same flickering screen discussed above. I haven't connected a second display as some other posts have. Just a flickering display since the upgrade. Any suggestions welcome.

  • by dianeoforegon,

    dianeoforegon dianeoforegon Nov 5, 2013 7:15 PM in response to derekthecat
    Level 5 (5,372 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 5, 2013 7:15 PM in response to derekthecat

    This could be a background processes trying to do something that's affecting foreground focus. I'd take a look at Activity Monitor to see if there's anything that peaks in CPU, memory, or network usage every five seconds.

     

    Don't see anything?

     

    • Log out under the Apple in the Menu bar.
    • Log in with the Shift key down. This will disable all Login Items.

     

    If the problem goes away, it's one of your Login Items.

     

    If you still have problems, download and run Etrecheck. Look for items in red. You can post results here.

     

    http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

  • by derekthecat,

    derekthecat derekthecat Nov 5, 2013 7:28 PM in response to dianeoforegon
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2013 7:28 PM in response to dianeoforegon

    I have run safe boot and you are right, the system works fine ( no flickering)

    quit all my login items that I can find and here is my etrecheck info

     

    Thanks for anything you can help with

     

    Hardware Information:

              MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,1

              1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

              8 GB RAM

     

    Video Information:

              Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1024 MB

              NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - VRAM: 1024 MB

     

    Audio Plug-ins:

              BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0

              AirPlay: Version: 1.9

              AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0

              iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3

     

    Startup Items:

              HP IO - Path: /Library/StartupItems/HP IO

     

    System Software:

              OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 0:4:43

     

    Disk Information:

              APPLE HDD HTS547575A9E384 disk0 : (750.16 GB)

                        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

                        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 749.3 GB (469.76 GB free)

                        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

     

              HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS31N 

     

    USB Information:

     

              LaCie LaCie CooKey

     

              Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

     

              Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

                        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

     

              Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

     

              Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

     

     

    FireWire Information:

     

    Thunderbolt Information:

              Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

     

    Kernel Extensions:

     

    Problem System Launch Daemons:

     

    Problem System Launch Agents:

     

    Launch Daemons:

              [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

              [loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2.Agent.plist

              [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

              [loaded] com.sierrawireless.SWoCTool.plist

     

    Launch Agents:

     

    User Launch Agents:

              [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

              [loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.scheduledScan.plist

              [loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.trashWatcher.plist

     

    User Login Items:

              None

     

    3rd Party Preference Panes:

              Flash Player

              Flip4Mac WMV

     

    Internet Plug-ins:

              Default Browser.plugin

              Flash Player.plugin

              FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin

              Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin

              Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin

              iPhotoPhotocast.plugin

              JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

              OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin.plugin

              QuickTime Plugin.plugin

              SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin

     

    User Internet Plug-ins:

     

    Bad Fonts:

              None

     

    Time Machine:

              Skip System Files: NO

              Mobile backups: ON

              Auto backup: YES

              Volumes being backed up:

                        Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 279.54 GB

              Destinations:

                        Data [Network] (Last used)

                        Total size: 998.06 GB

                        Total number of backups: 112

                        Oldest backup: 2010-04-20 20:52:10 +0000

                        Last backup: 2013-10-07 03:46:48 +0000

                        Size of backup disk: Adequate

                                  Backup size 998.06 GB > (Disk used 279.54 GB X 3)

     

    Top Processes by CPU:

                  4%          kextd

                  2%          WindowServer

                  2%          mds

                  1%          EtreCheck

                  0%          coreservicesd

                  0%          SystemUIServer

                  0%          ocspd

                  0%          fontd

                  0%          Finder

                  0%          mtmfs

     

    Top Processes by Memory:

              156 MB             com.apple.IconServicesAgent

              106 MB             Finder

              74 MB              mds_stores

              74 MB              WindowServer

              57 MB              CalendarAgent

              57 MB              SystemUIServer

              57 MB              com.apple.internetaccounts

              49 MB              com.apple.dock.extra

              49 MB              mds

              49 MB              soagent

     

    Virtual Memory Statistics:

              4.46 GB            Free RAM

              1.66 GB            Active RAM

              1.11 GB            Inactive RAM

              788 MB             Wired RAM

              179 MB             Page-ins

              0 B                Page-outs

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Nov 5, 2013 7:34 PM in response to derekthecat
    Level 9 (50,062 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 5, 2013 7:34 PM in response to derekthecat

    You should thoroughly clean your Mac of CleanMyMac.

    You may have to reinstall after removing it as it may have damaged the OS.

  • by derekthecat,

    derekthecat derekthecat Nov 5, 2013 7:55 PM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 5, 2013 7:55 PM in response to JeremyG_

    Thanks. Think I've gotten rid of it all...

    I'll boot into recovery and reinstall

     

    Cheers

  • by JCD.ero,

    JCD.ero JCD.ero Nov 6, 2013 8:28 PM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 6, 2013 8:28 PM in response to JeremyG_

    I have the same problem, but only when i try to access the menu bar from a full screen window. The menu bar comes down slow and flickery

  • by ACLong,

    ACLong ACLong Nov 19, 2013 7:50 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 19, 2013 7:50 AM in response to JeremyG_

    I also had a flickering menu bar on my inactive monitor, but without Google Drive running (or even installed), and with Microsoft Word 2011. It didn't happen pre-Mavericks. Very annoying.

     

    It may have been related to unplugging an external monitor and then plugging it back in again later.

     

    I found that if I quit Word and restarted it, the problem went away.

     

    Hope this helps.

  • by derekthecat,

    derekthecat derekthecat Nov 21, 2013 12:18 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 21, 2013 12:18 AM in response to JeremyG_

    Ok. So I reinstalled mavericks and still had the same flicking issue so went all out and bought a new ssd HD, installed and put a clean install of mavericks on it. When it boots to the welcome screen I still get the flickering menus and mouse movement. Strange! I put a clean install on 10.8.4 on it and it's fine.... It's a 2.6GHz i7 mbp. Just over a year old. Could my hardware be incompatible with mavericks?

     

    Oh. I put my existing HD in a case (with the suspect mavericks on it) and booted externally on another mac and there weren't any problems...

  • by JeremyG_,

    JeremyG_ JeremyG_ Nov 25, 2013 8:23 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 25, 2013 8:23 AM in response to JeremyG_

    I don't have Google Drive running, but I did just realize something.  Now it only flickers when the Word is the program that is active in the monitor I am not using (i.e., Word is the program on the inactive menu bar).  If I click off of Word on the monitor and (for example) make it Finder, the flickering stops.

  • by simnett,

    simnett simnett Nov 26, 2013 11:28 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 26, 2013 11:28 AM in response to JeremyG_

    I have similar experience, Word and Powerpoint do this. Watching the activity monitor it is notable that excel (which does not do this) is good about reducing CPU usage quickly, where ppt and wrd stay more active for longer even when not the highlighted app.

     

    Worth noting that this behavior is also evident on the connected laptop (macbook pro).

  • by James Boutcher,

    James Boutcher James Boutcher Dec 19, 2013 11:04 AM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Dec 19, 2013 11:04 AM in response to JeremyG_

    Had same thing happen to me today... Flickering menu bar on whatever display wasn't primary (had the active window in it). Killed apps one by one, and found that it was Microsoft Outlook that was causing the issues.

  • by NCLNacer,

    NCLNacer NCLNacer Dec 19, 2013 12:50 PM in response to JeremyG_
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2013 12:50 PM in response to JeremyG_

    Hi all, I had this problem today as well after updating to 10.9.1. The problem seems to be that the menubar process is crashing and hence that causes it to flash, as the process keeps restarting. After leaving it for a while the fans swithced on my Mac Mini. I was also completely locked out of the desktop as I couldnt even start a finder window or a terminal window.

     

    I managed to solve it after a few hours of tinkering (took many attempts), but here are the major points.

     

    First I rebooted into recovery mode (command+r untill the osx gives you the recovery screen) I then used a terminal widnow to navigate to the Applications folder and removed Google Drive.app (also deleted my Google Cache folder (~/Google Drive). To permanently remove a file in terminal I used rm -f, if you are not familiar with the terminal/command console please be very carefull with the rm command if you remove the wrong file/directory it can not be recovered, you can even destroy your whole osx installtion, only use if you know what you are doing.

     

    I restarted but i was still getting the same problem, so I restarted once again in safe mode this time (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US) i believe this checks file system & clears some cache's etc... I managed to log in ok, then restarted once again and happy days the menu bar is back to normal.

     

    Most reports of this problem I have seen today seem to point to incompatibilities between Mavericks and Google Drive and also some microsoft office products (power point, word, etc).

     

    Good luck to all that get this problem, it was very frustrating and I lost a whole afternoon resolving it.

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