Why is my Dock and Menu bar not transparent/Blur Effect

See if "Reduce Transparency" is enabled in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display

You need to have a lighter object behind the menu bar and Dock to see transparency in Dark or Light mode. In the following, I am in Dark mode.

Exhibit A - Menubar (lighter than without a dark background desktop picture)

Exhibit B - Dock

I am running 10.14.6 (18G103) and in Light mode, using the same Desktop picture as you, my Dock background and the menu bar show color influence of the underlying parts of the Desktop picture — not what you have shown.

In the past, have you installed any third-party Dock or menubar customization software that may be interfering with the normal behavior now?

Sorry. Not true…

Light Mode restores semi-transparency to the Dock and menu bar. Dark mode is not transparent.

I think your post shows transparency in the Dock with a light Desktop picture, as does my follow up post.

SquigglyMDV wrote:

Nope its just a solid color

FWIW, Your Dock looks dark because you are using a dark background image.

VikingOSX wrote:

I think your post shows transparency in the Dock with a light Desktop picture, as does my follow up post.

Yes I know. I was responding to your post…

Dark mode is not transparent.

I always use dark desktop pictures to spare my eyesight, so my bad, for not testing with a lighter pix before making that blatantly wrong assumption. 🙃