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All my drop down menus are blank

All drop down menus are blank and the white background that "drops" from the top line menu, drops all the way down to bottom of screen for every top line topic, even ones that in the past only had a couple of options.

Also, pop up menus are blank. Buttons are also blank so can't tell what is what.

Kind of stuck...

iMac

Posted on Dec 19, 2010 11:43 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Dec 20, 2010 7:45 AM

Log into a different account (always handy to have a second for testing). Do menus still not work? If they work in a second account try moving (in your original account):

Home (or your user name) > Library > Preferences > com.apple.finder.plist

to the desktop and restart your computer. This file saves the settings for that service and may become corrupt. Removing it from the Preferences folder will result in a new file being created with default settings. If this helps you can trash the file but you may need to reset other things covered by that preference. If it doesn't help you can replace the newly created file with the old one and restart to regain the old settings.

If that doesn't work, try starting in Safe Mode, then restart normally.

[Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393]

[What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X)|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564]

[Safe Boot takes longer than normal startup|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107394]

Do menus work in Safe Mode?
3 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Dec 20, 2010 7:45 AM in response to tortiose

Log into a different account (always handy to have a second for testing). Do menus still not work? If they work in a second account try moving (in your original account):

Home (or your user name) > Library > Preferences > com.apple.finder.plist

to the desktop and restart your computer. This file saves the settings for that service and may become corrupt. Removing it from the Preferences folder will result in a new file being created with default settings. If this helps you can trash the file but you may need to reset other things covered by that preference. If it doesn't help you can replace the newly created file with the old one and restart to regain the old settings.

If that doesn't work, try starting in Safe Mode, then restart normally.

[Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393]

[What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? (Mac OS X)|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564]

[Safe Boot takes longer than normal startup|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107394]

Do menus work in Safe Mode?

Dec 22, 2010 8:10 AM in response to tortiose

Menus in both my accounts are blank.

Blank even when starting in Safe Mode.

I was able to randomly pick a few menu options by guessing where in the blank drop down box would work. So was able to do controlled shut downs this time.

Also noticed my Safari icon in toolbar was gone. And when I tried to start it from applications menu, it would begin to boot, but fail.

Email would start, but could not see list of mail or any words other than folder names.

And thinking back, I think I was installing an upgrade to Adobe Reader just before this problem started. I think it was installing, I walked away and my daughter may have sat down at it to start facebook. Can't get any details from her as to what happened...

Dec 22, 2010 9:06 AM in response to tortiose

Both accounts means it is system wide, not just something happening to your account preferences.

Let's start from basic then. Boot from the System Installer disc that came with your computer or is the one for the version you currently have on there, select language if applicable, choose utilities, run Disk Utility and verify (and repair if necessary) the drive. You can verify a drive from DU on your main drive while booted but I have found this can result in incorrect reporting of errors. To repair your drive you have to run it from a drive other than the boot drive anyway.

Next, boot from your drive in [Safe Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393] and repair permissions. You can repair permissions while booted from the installer disc but this uses the permissions configuration on the installer disc which may be out of date if you have run any updates on your computer. Booting your computer to Safe Mode restricts the number of things running on your computer while permissions are being run and does a bit of spring cleaning at the same time.

Reading
[Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]

[Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]

[Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751]

+Summary of above from BDaqua+ (couldn't have said it better):
"Try Disk Utility

1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer (Edit: Do not use this disc if it is not the same general version as what you have currently on your computer, e.g. use a Tiger disc for a Tiger drive, not a Panther disc), then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

Then Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes."

Basically, verifying your drive is just making sure there isn't something happening to corrupt your files. Repairing permissions makes sure the right files can be read by the right applications. When you say you installed something from Adobe I am in particular wondering if you repaired preferences. I don't know how this would affect the menus but I do know that permission repair is particularly important before and after installing Adobe products.

All my drop down menus are blank

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