Monterey Menu Bar All Black With No Buttons

MatthewPhysics wrote:

After a few hours of use, the menu bar stops working consistently. I've only been able to fix it with a restart.

On the desktop, the menu bar is still visible. On full screen apps, the menu bar is completely black with no buttons (although I can still click buttons as though they were there). When I try to hover over the menu bar in a fullscreen app, the app screen size adjusts as if the menu bar was appearing but I only get a black bar.

Any way to fix this? I've seen suggestions like disabling auto-hiding of the menu bar or disabling translucency. Neither of those worked, the menu bar is still black.

Try a —SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test.

Yes, a Safe Boot could be a solution to your problem:

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

MatthewPhysics wrote:

Rebooting is not really a solution to the problem.

Also, I'd prefer not to install 3rd party software.

It's your mac, your call. You did come here for help, and we can't do much without information.

It is a bit ironic, because it is most likely third party software that is causing the problem.

And yet you are wary of installing a simple diagnostic tool that was created with the sole purpose of helping users in these fora help others, by providing adequate information to look for problems, and which could lead us to find the cause of the problem.

What is sketchy about it?

And by any chance do you trust software like "Cleanmymac"?

I suggest you just take a look at a few of the posts today in this forum.

You may find a dozen or more Etrecheck reports, to see the kind of information it provides.

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.