Menu bar turning black in full-screen mode

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Level 1

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Menu bar turning black in full-screen mode

Hello.

I am running OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 on an 11.3" MacBook Air (i7, 2012).

A few days ago the menu bar suddenly became black while in full-screen mode (as you can see in the screenshot attached below, a typical example of a Safari browsing session). This occurs for all applications.

This was unprompted, undesired, and has so far resisted all attempts at repair. It persists resolutely through reboots.

I welcome any plausible suggestions (which is to mean, anything that does not involve reinstalling the OS for such a minor niggle, which I suspect is a semirandom corruption somewhere).

Thanks to all.

//JJ

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3), 11.3", 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7, 4GB

Posted on May 8, 2013 1:29 AM

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Answer 1

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Paul_31

Level 6

14,160 points

May 8, 2013 2:10 AM in response to qubex

If Translucent Menu Bar is ticked, try unticking it:

System Preferences>Desktop & Screensaver>Desktop tab. I did find this discussing a similar sounding problem:

https://getsatisfaction.com/apple/topics/macbook_air_osx_menu_turns_black

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Answer 2

qubex Author

Level 1

49 points

May 8, 2013 2:15 AM in response to Paul_31

Hey there, thanks for your suggestion.

I tried that about a week ago. It had been ticked so I unticked it. The end result was that the menubar ceased to be translucent everywhere else, but the problem was not resolved and the menu bar remained black when in fullscreen mode. Annoyingly (and perhaps tellingly), re-ticking the box has not restored translucency.

Acting on the hunch, I tried repairing disk permissions, but currently no errors come up.

//JJ

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Answer 3

Paul_31

Level 6

14,160 points

May 8, 2013 2:18 AM in response to qubex

Mmm - have you tried a 'safe boot', which can sometimes sort out odd behaviour?

Restart holding down the shift key until you see a grey progress bar. Test to see if the problem persists. Restart as normal from the Apple menu.

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Answer 4

qubex Author

Level 1

49 points

May 8, 2013 2:27 AM in response to Paul_31

Tried that too.

"Verify disk" from within the booted machine reveals disk errors that theoretically can only be repaired in Safe Mode.

However, when I did boot into Safe Mode and used Disk Utility to repair the disk, it came up with an all-green OK. This behaviour is consistent and recurring.

//JJ

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Answer 5

Paul_31

Level 6

14,160 points

May 8, 2013 2:40 AM in response to qubex

My last couple of ideas, and then I'm stuck for other suggestions 😟.

Have you tried booting into the Recovery HD and running repairs to the HD?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

And, although it's often dismissed by some on here others occasionally run OnyX, which has a good repution for performing disk maintenance safely (always have a reliable backup though). I've run it from time to time and have never had any concerns. It runs a variety of system checks that OSX can perform itself, but wraps all those processes in a clear GUI and executes them at your command:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php

Good luck - if you do ever get it resolved, please let us know the solution.

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Answer 6

qubex Author

Level 1

49 points

May 8, 2013 4:29 AM in response to Paul_31

Had tried and tried again... to no avail.

Does anybody know exactly which files are involved in rendering the menubar? If they're few and known (or many but reasonably clustered) I could try extracting a fresh set from the installation packages with Pacifier.

Or am I just stuck with this...? 😢

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Answer 7

Paul_31

Level 6

14,160 points

May 8, 2013 4:32 AM in response to qubex

Hopefully someone here will know, unfortunately I don't. There's possibly a plist file that can be deleted that may restore normal service.

With a bit of luck someone else will spot this thread and chime in with some fresh ideas. I'll be watching 'cos I'd like to know the answer!

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Answer 8

qubex Author

Level 1

49 points

May 8, 2013 4:47 AM in response to Paul_31

For the sake of reference and curiosity, the other thing I've just thought of doing has been:

killall SystemUIServer

mv /users/<username>/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist /users/<username>/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist.old

(If anybody else is reading this to help with a problem they are experiencing, remember to replace <username> with your actual username in both instances.)

When I rebooted it recreated the systemUI plist file, but it didn't fix the problem.

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Answer 9

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,535 points

May 8, 2013 3:49 PM in response to qubex

It's not clear whether you have the same issue while booted in safe mode. Do you? I don't mean after rebooting out of safe mode.

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Answer 10

qubex Author

Level 1

49 points

May 9, 2013 5:10 AM in response to Linc Davis

Yes, the problem remains when I boot into Safe Mode.

However, it does not show up when I am logged in as another user, even if I boot normally, meaning that it depends only on my account.

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Answer 11

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,535 points

May 9, 2013 7:46 AM in response to qubex

In the Desktop preference pane, there's a setting to make the menu bar transparent. Does changing that setting have any effect?

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Answer 12

qubex Author

Level 1

49 points

May 9, 2013 8:04 AM in response to Linc Davis

As I've already written: no, fiddling with the Transparecny setting has not fixed the problem.

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Answer 13

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,535 points

May 9, 2013 8:20 AM in response to qubex

The menu bar doesn't normally appear at all in full-screen mode unless you move the cursor to the top of the screen. Is that what you're doing, or does it show all the time?

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