Activity Monitor displaying only processes, no other info

Question

Level 8

49,005 points

Activity Monitor displaying only processes, no other info

This afternoon I opened Activity Monitor (in the course of answering another user's question), and found that the window is devoid of information other than the Process Names. Normally, columns are shown that indicate CPU utilization, process uptime, number of spawned threads, etc., such as in this image borrowed from Apple's Activity Monitor User Guide:

In my case, there is nothing displayed other than the Process IDs. The header bar with the column labels is likewise blank. Secondary-clicking in the header bar shows the column selection dropdown, and the appropriate items are checked, but not showing. This is the case for all tabs, showing just the CPU tab below:

Selecting and/or deselecting columns to show has no effect. I have tried force-quitting Activity Monitor and rebooting the Mac, also with no effect.

I have iStat Menus installed, and that appropriately displays the processes and their CPU utilization, RAM allocations, etc.

2019 16" MacBook Pro, macOS 10.15.6 with SU applied.

Suggestions on next steps?

Posted on Sep 22, 2020 9:43 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

69,302 points

Sep 22, 2020 9:53 AM in response to neuroanatomist

That's odd. I am assuming it was working normally before this morning?

I thought at first the column width had been changed, leaving Processes too wide. However, when I tried to duplicate it, the other columns limited how far I could drag the bar.

Have you tried full-screen, the back again?

Two long shots:

What happens if you quit iStat? It and AM are trying to read the same parameters.
Are you running any font managers?

Reply

Answer 2

neuroanatomist Author

Level 8

49,005 points

Sep 22, 2020 10:24 AM in response to Allan Jones

Yes, working properly yesterday.

Full screen did show that the column header wasn't blank, but that 'Process Name' was off to the right.

...which then led me to simply scroll right (which I thought I had done before, but I guess not), and the remaining columns were heck-and-gone to the right. Resizing the column to something reasonable fixed the issue.

Not sure how it got that way, but I see that when I resize the AM window it's only the first column that actually gets wider or shrinks. It's as if I opened AM in full screen on an ultra high-res display, then it didn't size back down the column (in reality, I have not connected any external displays or changed the window size of AM). Using the column separator, I am able to resize that first column to over 12,000 pixels wide with successive drags. I guess Activity Monitor is future-proof for Apple's 12K displays...

Thanks, Allan!

Reply

Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 9

69,302 points

Sep 22, 2020 10:50 AM in response to neuroanatomist

You are most welcome. Your posts have helped me so many times that I was happy to be able to reciprocate! Very glad you are back.

Reply

Activity Monitor displaying only processes, no other info

Similar questions