No clock in menu bar

Try creating a new user account and seeing if the clock shows up there. If it does, then it's something in your user settings.. if not, then it's in the system settings....

When you go to the system preferences under 'date and time'... and you click on the view in menu box and all that stuff.. does the clock ever show up? You mention that the box gets un-checked once you move.. if the clock shows up when you click, try clicking on the padlock on the bottom to lock the settings so that they cannot be changed....

Also, make sure that you use 'disk utility' to repair disk permissions and restart the computer...

You may have to find the 3rd party menu bar stuff and move it to see if your functions will come back. Once you move it, you'll probably have to restart...

Have a look in the library folder in main system (not user).. do a search for "date" in the finder window.. Do you get an applescript that shows up titled "current date and time.scpt"

If not, let me know and I'll try to send you the script... also have a look for "datetime.bundle"...

It could be that somehow your clock files were moved..

Try the disk repair first... good luck!

When I ran the Security Update and restarted my menu extras were messed up yet again. What I did was remove:

"/Users/francine/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist"

and then launched Activity Monitor and used it to Force Quit the SystemUIServer process. You can then reset things to your tastes. Actually, for me, the preferences get changed when I do lots of different things, such as any system update, and sometimes just a restart will change things. So I keep a handy copy of the plist file and when necessary I remove the one with the problem and replace it with my backup, then restart SystemUIServer.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

That sounds like maybe your SystemUIServer is not running at all. Did you launch Activity Monitor (it is in your Utilities folder)? If you click the column header to arrange by Process Name, can you see SystemUIServer in the list?
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

I'm having the exact same issues in 10.4.5 since the new security update. my spotlight menu is gone and my clock is gone. when i go to system prefs and turn on the menu clock it doesn't appear. also lots of the system preferences, such as keyboard will cause system prefs to unexpectedly quit when i click on them. when i check activity monitor SystemUIServer is not running at all, and since 10.4.5 it had been crashing on me too causing me to have to force quit it (from activity monitor) login window as well... this is the biggest problem i've had since tiger was released and man its frustrating.

Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Did you also have a 3rd party menu bar application?

Yikes... this is the same for even the root user on my machine. this is very frightening. Somebody please help. I tried deleting the "com.apple.systemuiserver.plist" and it did nothing. i've repaired permissions and I've also started up in single user mode (cmd-s) and ran the latest version of applejack through all of its tools and still, no menu bar clock, no spotlight menu, although find does work. also system preferences quits unexpectedly when i click on Security, Keyboard and Mouse, and Sound. I'm going to try reinstalling the 10.4.5 update if its possible.

the only third party menu apps i have are Menuet and Growl. I just removed them and am going to reboot.

I checked Activity Monitor and SystemUIServer is doing the same thing on my machine. it pops up every twenty seconds or so for a second and then goes away, this repeats over and over. I just got off the phone with AppleCare and their suggestion was Archive and Install, which I would really love to avoid. Help!

Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.5)

There has been much badness between SystemUIServer, menu bar extras and Spotlight from day one in Tiger. I think I was one of the first to run afoul of these problems, but others have since succumbed, often with far more serious problems than I've had. I have left off all the menulets except for two, and only use the wClock third party menulet. This is a bit inconvenient, and the three items I do have, as mentioned above, frequently rearrange themselves. But at least I can force quit SystemUIServer and have it restart correctly and use my backup plist.

You might try using Pacifist to extract and reinstall the following:

"/System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle"
"/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app"

Disable all menu extras, even the Apple ones, and if that does bring SystemUIServer back to running you can add them back one at a time, run for awhile, then try adding another.

If that doesn't do it, and you also do all the maintenance procedures, including using one of the utilities that will deep clean caches, both user and system, and still no joy, you may indeed be faced with a reinstall.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder