Menubar Freezes

Exactly the SAME issue. This occured immediately after upgrading to Mountain Lion.

It seems to only really effect any of the "core" apple menubar services, ie. clock, spotlight, networks.

It also seems to occur only when I shut my laptop... once I return it wakes up and has this issue.

Fixes?

I have the same problem with a brand new 27" iMac, 2.7 Ghz i5. Menubar freezes after almost every sleep.

Exactly the same problem, immediately after upgrading on my MacBook Air.

SystemUIServer using 94% CPU, Quit process and all comes good until next time. Happening once per day. Tried unnstalling Menu enabled System tools, incase there was a conflict, no change.

Going to run a disk utilitity for perms now to check that.

I only notice it when I use Spotlight, which I use to launch Apps. It is getting a little annoying.. hoping for a fix or patch!

Just a quick update,

This is still an issue for me and my macbook pro late 2010. It's not like something that occurs 50% of the time. This happens every-single-time without fail when waking from sleep.

I've tried disabling/uninstalling all other third-party menubar applications, repairing permissions, and tweaking certain settings.

For some reason, I am unable to resolve this issue unless I completely "restart/shutdown" my computer. I've tried using activity monitor to quit SystemUIServer, and using terminal.

It'll stop those menubar processes, but won't restart them correctly.

I am really hoping that this will be resolved in the next Mountain Lion update.

😀

I am still on Lion as the list of apps that are not working with ML contains too many that I use.

Anyways, i've had this systemuiserver issue on and off since installing lion, but a search of the forums reveals many of thesame problem through from 10.4 to 10.8, ℹit looks as if every os x has had this issue and it varies from person to person.

I have not yet tried the playlist file option, but systematically turned off all things displayed in the right side of the menu bar.

Often this toggling of items would cause noticable changes in the cpu usage that systemuiserver was eating, particularly the clock➖, which i was sure switching it off had solved the issue, but alas it just took longer to re-appear. however they were not sustained or consistent spikes in the activity of that actual SystemUI process.

tonight i tried toggling the wifi➕. Switching it on the SysUIserver pops right up to danger levels of 80-90%, switching the wi-fi off does nothing initiallty, but after about 20-30 seconds the Sysui drops back to a moderate 0.5% - 2%.

This wi-fi toggle scenario has been repeated time and time again and is the only consistent cause of the change to the systemUIserver cpu usage problem in my situation.

I am now using the LAN cable in the ethernet port instead with no problems.

I have a 2010 Imac with 4gb of ram and all sorts of peripherals from lacie 2TB drives (x3) and a presonus 24 track digital desk, usb hubs coming from every port on the iMac and a second screen, along with 2 other heavily used sharing macs on the local network using airfoil and itunes home sharing, i also remotely control the mixdesk with the ipad and often use the local network for multiple apps running over each other.

I will continue to test this theory tonight by operating the antenna without being associated with a network and see if the problem still occurs.

Hope this will ease the frustration that at least some of you are having from the same problem, although it appears from the varied reports that it could be a general problem with any right side system menubar item, depending on the setup of your machine, but beyond my little fix the discovery of the root cause is for the coders who understand events behind a click or a keystroke.

good luck, and may the sauce be with you.👿

BTW i would apppreciate any solution that doesn't involve my machine having an un-usable wi-fi card.

Hmm, can you be more specific on how you really got this to fix your problem?

I tried this (deleting systemuiserver plist), and it seems to work for a couple of restarts/sleep sessions however, it inevitably comes back, in which I REPEAT these steps until it happens again.

Has this truly worked for you? You haven't experienced any issues since this 'fix'?

Also, @huge_mac_man,

That makes a lot of sense actually. It is ALWAYS the "wireless" menubar process that freezes for me and causes everything to go down with it.

I have a macbook pro mid-2010, and use iStat Menus. At first I wondered if this was the cause, but these menu items are never the cause.

It is always the wireless/networks menubar item that freezes 100% of the time.

It's strange that you say you've seen this occur on all different Operating Systems. I've used this mac with Snow Leopard, Lion, and now Mountain Lion. The issue only arose after upgrading to Mountain Lion.

I'm really hoping for a fix for this, since repairing permissions / erasing .plist files don't seem to work.

Almost IMMEDIATELY after posting this, I saw another fix.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4176244?answerId=19221021022#19221021022

I'm not sure if this applies to all of you, but I use Panic's "Transmit" FTP client, and it has a menubar item installed.

Several other members have posted that once they removed Transmit from their menu items this WIFI freezing issue was resolved.

After testing it, it seems to have solved my problem as well. We'll see how long this lasts though.

This one doesn't apply to me. I don't use Transmit. At least once I day I'm still having to go into Activity Monitor and quit systemUIserver.

Is there any chance this will be fixed in the next ML update?

I had this problem happening on my 2010 white MB. It seemed to happen mostly after waking from sleep or connecting an iPod to sync.

I switched user accounts and have been problem free now for nearly a week. Not sure why or what was causing it or if this fixed the problem. I may have traced it to Firefox but I am not sure.

SOLUTION for SSDs machines.

For those of you with 3RD party SSDs, this solution worked for me.

Update the firmware on your SSDs, after 10.8 something screwy happened to where the mac would not be able to communicate with the SSD, making it freeze and have to do a forced reboot. Manufacturers like OSZ and Sandisk, addressed the issue in seperate firmware updates. I just updated mine and after testing with sleeping for both 20mins and 8 hours, the freezing issue has stopped. Hopefully, this will help others as well.

Go to the manufacturers website for your SSD and update to its latest SSD firmware, reboot and it should all be better now. Goodluck!

I don't have a solution, but a couple of other "features" of the problem ...

Clock display freezes - I assume at the time of the problem. Using preferences from the dock you see the Date & Time/Clock "show date & time in menu bar" tick box has been cleared.

The hard drive is spinning - this on a machine that hasn't been used for 24 hours with nothing else running that would access the drive.

The telltale clock freezing is new on mountain lion for me, but I've had the same issues huge_mac_man with lion, such that whenever possible I'll turn wifi off.

Killing the SystemUIServer process fixes the immediate problem, but I've no idea the root cause.

Did you fix your problem by any chance ?

-Clock display freezes

-The hard drive is spinning.. for no apparent reason.

When i kill the SystemUIServer, it fixes my display problem, however the hard drive problem remains..

Does anyone have a solution ?

Thank you

OK, so here's what worked for me. If you are using time machine, or if it's appearing on your menu bar... Open Time Machine. Click the box that reads "show icon..." or whatever it says.. so that it's not appearing on your menu bar.

Problem solved for me. And btw, I've got 10 apps appearing in my menu bar. Size does not matter, however. At least... that's....what....I'm told.

Cheers!