After installing Mac OS Sonoma there is a constant green dot on the menu bar. It disappears only after restarting the mac. The camera is not working (I hope). Seems to start when I start Zoom but it never goes away. The green dot placement can be anywhere on the menu bar. Sometimes it is in the middle and sometimes on the far right.
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.1
Click the Control Center icon 
to open Control Center, where you can access features you use often, such as AirDrop, Stage Manager, Screen Mirroring, Focus, and more. See Use Control Center.
Privacy indicators, which can be dots or arrows, are located to the right of Control Center. An orange dot 
next to the Control Center icon in the menu bar indicates the microphone on your Mac is in use; a green dot 
indicates a camera is in use; a purple dot 
indicates the system audio is being recorded; and an arrow 
indicates your location is in use. Only one privacy indicator dot is shown at a time. For example, if both the microphone and a camera are in use, you only see a green dot. When you open Control Center, the top of the window may contain a field that shows which apps are using your microphone, location, camera, or system audio. You can click that field to open the Privacy window, which may have additional information (macOS 13.3 or later).
In your case, does it show up in a screen shot or only when you take a picture of your screen?
It's not a pixel. It's a green dot icon the same as the orange for mic use. this only started happening with Sonoma. Many people are reporting this issue so I doubt all of us suffer from the same hardware issue all at once.
Sonoma 14.2.1 the issue is still there, but it seems like this green dot is moving from top right corner to the middle or vice versa.
Actually I have a led indicator on a notch if camera is on, so I don't know why we need this one on the screen?
More over when you open youtube in full screen it remains, really annoying thing.
Screen with this dot
Screen with Zoom opened and camera used
As stated by OP and others:
Since it was near the time values, I explored changing time settings to see if it forces a refresh of the menu bar. Came upon another interesting bug:
Very odd, and surprising that Apple testing didnt show a dot that's always present on screen!
It's going away after a macOS update is only temporary. I installed Sonoma 14.4 last week and the dot went away. But it is now back and there are no available updates. I think the root cause is something else that the macOS update masks temporarily.
I have done more experimentation.
The dot will disappear if you put the machine to sleep via the Finder menu and then revive it. (It remains if you close the lid and reopen.)
After reviving the machine, the green dot will instantly appear when you move the cursor with the trackpad.
(Both of these were conducted with the Zoom app shut down.)
This isn't the dot we're talking about. Look at the screenshots ppl have posted - both Artem_Fedorov and maxwhyam have posted pictures of it. We're not talking about the dot next to the Notifications Menu icon, that one is functioning as normal; we're talking about this strange green dot (for me it's just left of center) that appears even when neither the camera nor mic are in use, as people have already stated.
it goes away, for an hour or so.
I went to the Security and Privacy section, removed all access to camera for apps listed, the green dot is still there unless I restart
Its not Zoom related. I dont have zoom on my mac, and I still have this dot which drives me crazy since i think somebody has access to my camera. Its a nasty bug if you ask me, makes users feel they are being watched.
I understand and do agree it could be a driver issue that could be fixed with a software update. With the fact that it does not show up in a screenshot, I think you could eliminate software such as Zoom or even the OS displaying the dot. You are still able to screen shot the dots that appear when using the Microphone, Location, or Camera, so this dot is not being written to the screen buffer by any software.
It is odd that it would disappear for a while after restart and I assume starting in Safe Mode does not eliminate it completely either. This dot issue has been reported by others using different versions of the OS, so don't think it is specific to Sonoma. The problem is that there has never been a specific solution provided in any of these reports, so we do not know if it went away on its own or if a solution was simply not given.
Got the issue as well after starting zoom today. So many other bugs with Sonoma as well. Bluetooth connectivity is a MESS (already in monterey present, not resolved yet), computer randomly freezes when using third party apps to view films on two monitors, etc. etc.
I really enjoy the apple experience a lot but with these bugs mounting up seemingly every other OS update and not being resolved I'm thinking of buying the next computer with windows again. sad
I also have this issue. See the green dot near the "Inigo" in the photo from my camera. I cannot take a screenshot of it either.
It's definitely some software causing the issue, but at the moment hard to narrow down.
Advice appreciated. I tried rebooting and running Zoom but so far cannot reproduce today.
I have a similar green dot issue. I feel like someone is spying on me. In my case, the green dot is present on the left side of the menu bar (near the 'Go' option). However, when I move my cursor to other extended screens the green dot disappears and reappears when I bring back the cursor. Also, sometimes it randomly disappears while using the MacBook screen. I did notice this green dot after updating the software a few weeks back until today. What should we do?
" What should we do?"
Ignore it, live with it. No one seems to know what’s causing it and very few are experiencing it. Chalk it up to a glitch or anomaly and go on about your business. Or continue to obsess over it. Your choice.
Does it remain after a restart?
A constant green dot on menu bar after installing Sonoma
