secondary monitor fullscreen apps often have gray bar on top

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secondary monitor fullscreen apps often have gray bar on top

I have noticed that frequently, for all apps, if I fullscreen an app on a non-primary monitor it frequently has a grey bar at the top where the menu bar would be were it not fullscreen. I have only noticed this on 10.9, since I didn't use fullscreen apps with multiple monitors before, so I'm not sure if it was introduced with 10.9. Has anyone else had this issue or have any ideas as to how to fix it?

I use a Dell 27" (2560x1440) monitor as my primary monitor on the left., connected via mini displayport. On the right I have my 15" rmbp (2012). The problem happens when I fullscreen apps on the rmbp screen. Here are some screenshots:

OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 30, 2013 10:40 AM

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Answer 1

coaxmetal Author

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Oct 31, 2013 10:43 AM in response to coaxmetal

I'm not sure I put this in the right category, it didn't show up when I looked

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Answer 2

Nov 2, 2013 5:24 PM in response to coaxmetal

I see this too. Mainly with iTunes. Bit of a pain, but I haven't been able to find any way of fixing it. You can set your system to share desktops ("spaces" in Apple's parlance) as suggested here, but then you're back to Lion-style handing of multiple monitors. Taking the app out of and then back into fullscreen seems to temporaily fix the issue too, so I guess that's our workaround for now.

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Answer 3

coaxmetal Author

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Nov 2, 2013 5:41 PM in response to coaxmetal

That's good to know, but the 10.9 way of handling multiple monitors is probably the best thing about it. For now I just take the app into and out of fullscreen until it works properly, but I haven't identified any pattern to how or when it works

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Answer 4

Nov 2, 2013 5:53 PM in response to coaxmetal

Yes, I agree. The grey bar's a minor annoyance compared to combined spaces.

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Answer 5

coaxmetal Author

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Nov 19, 2013 10:56 AM in response to coaxmetal

For others who are having this issue, reinstalling the OS seemed to fix the problem, mostly. It still happens with chrome occasionally but I think that is because of the way its tab bar works (which is nonstandard for osx). It doesn't seem to happen with other apps anymore.

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Answer 6

Feb 27, 2014 12:19 PM in response to coaxmetal

For those that don't want to reinstall their OS (like me), this is how I solved my Chrome bar problem:

Get out of full screen
Shrink the window to a smaller size (smaller than edges of monitor)
Click green + button to maximize
Entered full screen
NO GRAY BAR

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