dropdown menus not opening in MacOS Sonoma

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 

> 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).

No, my setting has always been 'none'. What does clear the problem completely - for me - is changing the default browser from Safari, and quitting Safari. The Apple 'drop-down menu remained functional for two days. However it is more convenient for me to return to Safari and occasionally contend with the problem by logging out and immediately logging in again. So I await an Apple resolution.

The same thing happened on my MacBook Air after an automatic update to Sonoma 14.0 occured. Force quit remedied the problem but it keeps on recurring anytime I use the drop down menu. Force quit disrupts any work being done online. Because the problem prevents access to the sidebar menu, I'm going to move that from the left side for now and look into whether some Sonoma setting needs to be adjusted. It seems like a bug that apple has to fix. It is not just annoying, it has repeatedly undermined my work flow.

Hello! I updated yesterday to Sonoma and have the same problem: if no app window is opened on a given space, then clicking the  icon from that space won't open the menu. If there is an app window, however, then everything works just fine. Any news from Apple on this?

Thanks to everyone. The force quit helped and now it seems to be OK 🤞

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.

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.

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.

SImilar issue....

On My Mac mini... the main display, clicking the apple dropdown opens the dropdown on the secondary monitor.

This ONLY happens when on the desktop (Finder) and not within an application.

I have to open those drop downs on the secondary monitor only for desktop menus. Strange bug.

FWIW, I don't think it's a bug, It's something local to your Mac. None of my Macs running Sonoma exhibit that behavior.

Mysteriously, I no longer have the problem, and my “About This Mac” still shows “Sonoma 14.0” so there has not been any significant update.