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Level 1

3 points

Menu Bar Icons Missing

When I first installed Mountain Lion, the menu bar had the normal icons - BlueTooth, Time Machine, Clock, etc. Now on the day after, all of these icons are missing and any attempt to re-add them using the System Preferneces results in a spinning cursor for a few seconds and then the menu bar icon preference turning itself off.

Other system preferences seem to work fine.

I have already run a repair on disk permissions so that does not seem to be the issue.

OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 29, 2012 5:15 PM

Best reply

c warren

Level 1

9 points

Posted on Sep 26, 2012 10:58 AM

I have had the same problem; in addition, some of my favorites - Menu Meters and Application Switcher Menu behave the same way - so both Apple menu bar and 3rd party icons are not behaving. The problem did not occur until I installed the OS 10.8.2 update. When the problem ocurred, I:

1. Ensured that my system preferences in "Secutity and Privacy" were set to allow any applications.

2. Ensured that the "display icons" in each item I wanted were set to do so; this often resulted in a prolonged spinning beach ball before the setting would finish.

3. Eliminated all old system preference panes I had been using - Growl, Microsoft Keyboard (part of anold Intellipoint installation) and others, and ensured I had the latest versions of Menu Meters and ASM.

4. Installed the latest Microsoft Mouse preference pane because I use a Microsoft Trackball Explorer.

5. Removed and reinstalled all current 3rd party preferece panes (something that had worked for much earlier OS 10 updates).

6. Ran "Preferential Treatment" and removed two corrupted preferences (they were not preference panes).

7. Removed old startup items.

8. Downloaded the OS 10.8.2 combo update, and reinstalled it.

9. Repaired permissions in Disc Utility.

Now, the menu bar items load properly on about 1 of 3 startups. The startup sequence seems to fiffer. Sometimes, I get the arrowhead for the cursor immediately once I have entered my security code, and the desktop will appear all at once, with my walpaper, the finder open, and all menu bar icons displayed.

Sometimes I get a spinning beach ball instead of a cursor arow, and the desktop and finder load very slowly - usually without the icons. Often, the Spotlight icon will appear and disappear.

Sometimes I get the cursor, then the wallpaper and menu bar, then the hard drives I always dislay - there is a delay while the HD data comes up; then the dock - and sometimes I then get the menu bar icons, but usually not.

These different behaviors occur without my making changes from startup to startup.

I hope someone can help.

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40 replies

Adzi

Level 1

8 points

Nov 7, 2013 7:47 PM in response to macjack

Thanks a heap macjack, I have had this problem for a while now and I followed your instructions and the problem was solved I now have my actives back.I will remember this one for future referance.

Oh and by the way, Im running Mavericks. So the tip workes on the latest OSX as well.

Thanks a million.

Mav2287

Level 1

0 points

Jan 1, 2014 10:54 PM in response to kelly.davies

I know this is a bit old now but I would say the very first thing to do is to go /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/ and check the names of the files. OS X can rename the menu files and then they will not work. For example somehow my clock.menu got rename disableclock.menu. This happend to Timemachine, Volume and some other vital icons. I tried anything and everything I could to try to find the problem. It wasn't till I decided I would try to copy my clock.menu from a working mac to the one that was having issues that I noticed it somehow got renamed. I went in changed it back and BAM! all I had to do was check and uncheck the item I wanted back and it was all good. Hope this helps someone.

SL1988

Level 1

13 points

Feb 15, 2015 11:43 AM in response to macjack

This solved my problem of the disappearing icons. I'd tried terminal commands and everything else I could think of, but the By Host folder was the key! Thank you!

jagered

Level 1

28 points

May 19, 2015 3:22 PM in response to kelly.davies

I do not have a ByHost folder?????

... so what now?

Jun 16, 2015 7:50 AM in response to kelly.davies

Shut down your computer and then turn it on again. Works for me to fix a lot of strange temporary bugs including this new disappearance.

jagered

Level 1

28 points

Jun 24, 2015 11:54 AM in response to Elaine Morrison

nope. shutting down and/or restarting did nothing.

Jul 30, 2015 5:01 AM in response to kelly.davies

Just wanted to add a possible solution for this issue that won't require re-setting any preferences; basically if macjack's solution would have worked for you, this will too, you won't lose any menu bar preference settings and you won't even have to log out. If you've already tried logging out and back in, or rebooting, and that didn't work, this will not work for you either so don't waste your time trying it.

Anyway, I keep a ton of stuff running and recently lost my right side menu bar items (clock, sound, networking, eject, etc). They were still there, because if I put my mouse over where they should be and clicked, I'd get the functionality, I just couldn't see them. Logging out is a painful operation for me because I have to restart everything I keep running. I simply instructed the SystemUIServer.app to reload and then my items came back like normal.

Here's what you do:

Open a terminal / command prompt. You can do this by pressing ⌘-Space and then typing "terminal" and hitting enter.
You'll end up with a command prompt and cursor. Type (or cut and paste) the following and hit enter: ps -efww|grep UI|grep SystemUIServer.app
The above should have given you a list that looks like this:
# ps -efww|grep UI|grep SystemUIServer.app
501 57145 1 0 7:48AM ?? 0:00.42 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/MacOS/SystemUIServer
501 57165 43517 0 7:50AM ttys001 0:00.00 grep SystemUIServer.app
The line that has the full path to the SystemUIServer.app is the one we want. The second number is the process ID, in my case, 57145.
Type the following: kill -HUP 57145 (obviously substituting 57145 for your computer's process ID for the SystemUIServer.app)
That will instruct the process to restart and reload its config. My invisible menu items came back immediately.

LeSombre

Level 1

0 points

Aug 14, 2015 4:24 AM in response to kelly.davies

Hi,

This is going to sound really weird, but I made the icons reappear simply by toggling between full screen and standard view.

Maxvale

Level 1

4 points

Aug 19, 2015 2:21 AM in response to kelly.davies

I read all solutions you are proposing here. Seems that we need to many movements to fix just some icons displaying. I hope Apple will fix this in nearby feature. I have second version of Mac OS with this icon bugs, even with up-to-date programs.

Novamojo

Level 1

4 points

May 10, 2016 2:47 PM in response to kelly.davies

I tried the safe start and reboot idea and it didn't work. I have been using Onyx: go to Parameters-->finder and on the bottom is an extras menu: choose whats missing… BAM menu goes crazy. I'll get nine wifi icons and three clocks and my cmd+shft+3 back with whatever still fits, which is most in the finder but not in the apps I want-- still better than missing the native menu item… the FIX is-- I loaded a free App named: AccessMenuBarApps 2.4. from MacUpdate.com-- I don't think that did anything but it is what I did BEFORE I threw away my: com.apple.systemuiserver.plist RESTARTED-- Still no native menue items. Opened Onyx (also free from MacUpdate, this is a really cool app, especially if you are not comfortable with Terminal-- play with it some other time). I skip the scans it wants to do every start up every time) I added each item one by one and I finally have a normal menu bar after at least 10 months.

OSX 10.8.5

2.5GHz Core i5

16GB DDR3

512 GB Samsung SSD

Menu Bar Icons Missing