dropdown menus not opening in MacOS Sonoma

I found the same issue this morning after updating to Sonoma yesterday. Here is what I've found:

• I have a finder window assigned to a specific desktop. I have had this for a long time just because I like it in one place.
• I found that if I change the setting to "None" the drop down menus will work in the other desktops.
• As soon as I change back to "This Desktop" the drop down menus stop working in other desktops.

Had exact same problem on my iMac after update to Sonoma. Here's what fixed it for me:

Force Quit Finder

1. Click the Apple menu* and select Force Quit.
2. From the Quit Applications list, highlight Finder and click the Relaunch button.

*Luckily the Apple menu works if you open another app, or browser.

I have the opposite problem on my desktop - the menus and some screens won't close. That would be annoying but they also stay at the front of everything else so I can't work. Restarting clears things up but only temporarily. All was fine until I updated to Sonoma 14.0.

Rob_Eadie wrote:

Hi there,

It's been shut down and restart 4 times since the upgrade and this happens every time. I've figured out that if I open one of the menus on the top right, the finder and apple icon menus return to normal. So for example I open the wifi menu and close it and the other menus work as expected. I have to do this every time I start up the laptop.

To be proactive you can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here:  http://www.apple.com/feedback 

Since I still have continued problems after restarting in Safe Mode as advised by Apple, I re-read this thread, and checked out the issues caused by "Finder". I set the Finder Options Assign to None, and tested different desktops with and without other opened apps. Here is my new conclusion:

1. All drop down work fine on all desktops, as long as there is at least one app open that is not "Finder".
2. When Finder is open, the Finder and Apple menus both do not drop down properly.
3. Even after Finder is closed, both menus still do not drop down, unless you click on another app, or hide Finder.
4. Apple needs to fix the drop down issues for Finder, and the connection between Finder and Apple menus.

I would agree that it has not been resolved as of yet, even with 14.1.1.

Setting the Finder to be assigned to "None" does resolve it for me and a few others have reported this it also.

Could one of you that still have the issue check the finder setting that you are using and see if it is set like the attached images below? You may have already done this, I just want to confirm.

Right click on the Finder icon in the Dock and check to be sure None is selected. Hopefully this will be resolved sometime in the future.

Rob_Eadie wrote:

When I start up my MacBook Pro, the dropdown menus under the Apple icon and Finder are all rolled up and do not drop down when selected. I have to open Safari for the menus to work properly.

What is going on?

Shut down and restart the Mac more than once since your upgrade...and try again.

Same for me too.

Upgraded to Sonoma this afternoon.

When there are no windows open on the screen (or if I swap to a space with no windows open), the Finder menus do not drop down, and neither does the  menu.

If I open an app or move a window into the space, all works as expected.

I have Bartender installed but I'm getting the same behaviour when it isn't running.

> if I open one of the menus on the top right, the finder and apple icon menus return to normal

I'll try that next time when Finder menus do that again (clean Sonoma install on Mac mini 2018). I have relaunched Finder to fix this a couple of times (Option-click Finder > Relaunch).

I have the same issue, and I do not have Bartender installed. As some have said, if I am in the finder and open one of the dropdown menus on the right side, everything goes to normal and the dropdown windows on the left work.

Mine will drop down, but I cannot access any of the listings in the menu. It is as if it is frozen. Had the same trouble while Safari was open. The same is true of History, Bookmarks, Develop, View, Safari, Edit, Bookmarks. I can only get the menu to recede when I click in the empty blue bar to the right of the menu headings. Why is this?

Pedantically, this is not a "fix". This is only a recovery action.

Because the behavior recurs, the bug is not fixed.

Forcing an app to quit only kills off that one instance of the app; when you restart it and perform similar interactions, you come back to a Safari that is not listening to dropdown menu item selections.

Pedantically I did not claim a 'fix', nor did I mention Safari. I was simply providing a very quick and effective recovery action to reduce the annoyance while we wait for a proper Apple solution. I hope that others may find it helpful.