What is this thing. Looks like there should be a drop down for preferences but it does nothing when clicked

It went away when in safe mode. I then restarted and it was gone. I have something called Bartender that controls the menu bar and that said a program called StatusBarApp it was unable to control when I was getting that. I deleted Bartender and just reinstalled it and the gear is still gone but there seems to be no problem with StatusBarApp. So I guess we are good. Thanks for your suggestion...it really helped alot and got me back on track....Thanks!!!!

Nothing. But thanks for the idea...I didn't think of that.

No. But that was a great suggestion. Thank you.