Q: my menu bar is frozen or something, will not come down and I can't shut off safari or shut down my computer.  Help.

You can force a shut down of your Mac by pressing and holding down the power button.

I have had this problem a few times and had to pull the power cord to shutdown. Then replug and startup again.

 Cheers, Tom

I'm running OS 10.6.8 on a 4 yr old iMac with 4 GB ram.  My menu bar has been freezing up for the past three weeks and it does it often.  Just the meunu bar, nothing else.  If I click on the Finder (Dock) and then close it, the menu works.  When the menu freezes while running an application I have to click on the desktop (away from the app window) then click on the app icon in the Dock, then click back on the app window - an the menu is OK - for a minute or so. But everytime I open an application (Mac or 3rd party) the main menu at the top of the screen eventually freezes.  Yesterday I booted in Safe Mode and it worked fine.  So while in Safe Mode I repaired permisions (Disk Utility) and restarted to normal.  The menu still freezes.  I was told it could be a Video card, 3rd party softeware or Airport (which is OFF).  I'm not a techy and I don't do technical stuff well but I've used Macs for 18 years.  This is the 1st time my menu has frozen.   Apparently this is rare because I'm not finding this problem in this or other forums.  

Short of trying a complete system reinstall, what are my options?

If it works in Safe Mode, the problem may be something that runs automatically in the background when you log in to your user account.  Or it may be something at the system level, such as a third-party system extension.

To narrow down the cause, I would create a new user account in System Preferences Accounts pane.  It can be Admin or Standard.  Log out and log in to the new user account (do NOT use Fast User Switching).

In the new user account, do the things that cause this problem.  If the problem does NOT occur, then the cause is something in your usual user account.  You should look at Login Items (in the Accounts pane).  If the problem DOES recur, then the problem is probably at the system level.  A hardware problem is system level, but this does not sound like it is related to hardware.

I created a new account but it wasn't very useful in as much as I didn't have a browser/email account set up and iPhoto was empty.  But I did try to open as many applications as possible and to stimulate a response.  And the menu did NOT freeze.

So I looked at my Login items in my account.  I found one that I use but was turned off (MagicPrefs) so I checked it.  And one item I "think" was related to a previous external hard drive program so I unchecked it.  Then I rebooterd in Safe Mode and ran Disk Utilities to repair permission again and then restarted normally.  At first I thought it was OK but after a few minutes the menu froze.

What worries me most is the fact that no one on this Forum, or the others I've posted to, have ever seen this problem before.  If I take my computer to the Apple store 60 miles from here they'll want to replace everything instead of looking for the problem.  If I reinstall the system software I'll use Time Machine to install the offending item(s) back on the computer!  I have Drive Genius 3 but I don't think it will help with this.  I wish there was a software that could analize software issues.  Do you have any more sugestions?

You may not have done what you think you did with the Login Items.  The checkbox next to the item is NOT for enabling and disabling the item.  It says Hide at the top of the checkboxes, and that's what it is for.  When checked, the item starts automatically but "hides."  Whether it is checked or not, it runs automatically at startup.  To NOT have it run automatically, it needs to be removed from the list; select it on the list and click the minus sign at the bottom of the list.

If you do a right-click on an item, and select Show in Finder, you can see where that item is actually stored (note that location).  For anything listed that might potentially cause this problem, remove it from the Login Items list.  See if it makes any difference.  If not (and it's something you need), you can add it back by dragging it to the list from a Finder window (or by using the plus sign under the list).

There is no need to reinstall the system, and I don't think the Apple Store will do that either, if you tell them that the problem does not recur if you are in a different user account.  The system is probably fine, if the problem does not occur in the other account.  In the worse case, you can create a new ADMIN user account as your permanent user account, move your user data over to it, and eventually abandon and delete your current user account.

Thanks for explaining the Accouts/Login Items for me.  Here's what I did;  I removed two items from the Login list: Western Digital (Application) and Antivirus (Unknown).  That left only three items: Weatherbug (Application), MagicPrefs (Application) and HP Scheduler -all users (Application).  I locked and closed my Account and restarted the computer.  The Menu bar still freezes!

I shoud note here that I use Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird 98% of the time and with both of them running the menu bar freezes all the time.  It also freezes in Text Edit and Preview.  Initially I thought it was a problem with Mozilla but the menu freezes in other applications too.  Do you still suspect it's a Login issue?

I'm not confident I can create a new Admin user and move my user data over to it.  Why doesn't Apple have a record of this issue?  Am I really the only person on this forum who is dealing with this? 

What about the other three items?  They are third-party items.  Have you checked at the developer's web site to see if there is a more recent version available?  Do any of them put something on the menu bar, because that would make it more likely to be relevant.

The fact that running from a new user account does not cause this problem to happen probably means the cause is not something that Apple can test for and deal with directly. 

I shoud note here that I use Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird 98% of the time

If you are running those apps most of the time, try NOT running those apps and running other apps (like TextEdit and Preview), to see if the problem still occurs.  An app that is running most of the time is basically the same as a login item, and should be considered a potential cause.  And make sure you have the latest version of both installed.  FireFox uses plug-ins, add-ons, and extensions, and they may do things to the menu bar.