Blank Icon Appears in Status Menu Bar in El Capitan

Question

Level 1

3 points

Blank Icon Appears in Status Menu Bar in El Capitan

At what seems like random times, the Menu Bar icons for the Status Menus (near the clock) shift to the left for a fraction of a second.

I tried disabling 3rd Party icons, but have not found a solution. I recorded a screen capture, and took stills from that to figure out which icon was causing the problem. The latest observation is that the jumping icons seems to occur between Apple's stock status menu icons (beginning with bluetooth icon) and the 3rd Party icons (iStat Menus, etc).

I have a clean-install of El Capitan on my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro, and both seem to do it, randomly (FYI MBP doesn't run iStat Menus, but does run the others: 1Password, ClamXav Sentry, & Little Snitch).

Anyone else having this happen or know why?

Thanks.

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), null

Posted on Mar 11, 2016 5:53 AM

Reply

Answer 1

eglinski

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2017 12:55 PM in response to JMohr

I have been having this issue for almost a year now, give or take. I encountered it on Sierra, but have just completed a fresh install of El Capitan. The only thing I have installed is Adobe Creative Suite, so I presumed that was the problem. However, quitting all instances of Adobe CC and the problem persists. (I installed my third-party VPN to watch its icon, which continues to blink to the right due to an invisible intruding icon.)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpf4636s83kfycb/Icon_flicker.mov?dl=0

The above is a .mov example of the menu bar icon glitching.

So this has affected me on both Sierra and this fresh El Capitan install. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. It is annoying AF.

Reply

Answer 2

eglinski

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2017 1:01 PM in response to MadMacs0

I, too, have been experiencing this invisible glitch menu bar icon (on both Sierra and El Capitan). I tried running a fresh install of El Capitan this week and disabled location services, but the space bumping the other icons continues.

Reply

Answer 3

eglinski

Level 1

8 points

Feb 11, 2017 10:07 PM in response to JMohr

I have reinstalled, fresh OS, a couple times now and the only things I can think of is changing my Spelling to British English. Happens on both El Capitan and Sierra. https://www.dropbox.com/s/a6bgl2ezw042rwr/Mac_menu_bar_icon_glitch.mov?dl=0

Reply

Answer 4

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Mar 11, 2016 6:42 PM in response to JMohr

That usually means that a menu icon is trying to open in that space, but for whatever reason is hung or crashed. The space will usually go away on it's own or when you switch to a new application and the screen is redrawn. Tracking down what it might be is difficult since menu icons seem to load randomly each time you log in. As you have observed, the space is between system and 3rd party icons, so it could be either. If the space stays long enough and is a hang, then Activity Monitor should show you what process is involved.

There are a few system icons that only appear briefly, so that's one possibility. The two I'm familiar with are the location (compass arrow) and AppleScript (rotating gear), but I normally see those show up at the far left end.

Reply

Answer 5

JMohr Author

Level 1

3 points

Mar 14, 2016 1:48 PM in response to MadMacs0

Thanks for your comments.

The white space is visible for less than half a second. If it's something crashing, it's not leaving the blank intact. I thought maybe it was Location Services icon, but I think I disabled the icon (maybe), and like you said, I think that appears on the far left (so as not to "shift" the icons when it appears).

I was hoping maybe someone else was experiencing this same "blinking" of the menu bar, but I haven't been able to find any other information about it. It's more of an annoyance than anything. I thought about trying Mac Bartender to see if that hid the "blinking", but it of course doesn't really solve the issue (if something's crashing).

Thanks.

Reply

Answer 6

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,233 points

Mar 15, 2016 3:14 AM in response to JMohr

JMohr wrote:

If it's something crashing, it's not leaving the blank intact.

I wouldn't expect it to. If you check the Console app under User and System "Diagnostic Reports" it will tell you what has been crashing in the past few days.

Reply

Answer 7

JMohr Author

Level 1

3 points

Mar 15, 2016 11:13 AM in response to MadMacs0

I checked the Diagnostic Reports (I tried trashing all of the diagnostic reports and then waiting for the menu bar to mess up so I could see if it added a new log).... I did see the menu bar blink, but no new diagnostic report. I had previously checked the Console before (All Messages) to see if showed anything crashing, but so far nothing shows up.

I kind of wonder if it's 1Password or one of the others (that I have on both my Mac Pro and MacBook Pro) that's loading/unloading something in the menu bar.

It's always frustrating when the issue can't be narrowed down, especially since I don't see it do it all the time.

Thanks again for your input. I'll keep an eye on it... 🙂

Reply

Answer 8

Lolaine

Level 1

4 points

Nov 15, 2016 5:48 AM in response to JMohr

I also have a blank icon. I think the 1Password does not work properly with the upgrade of El Capitan. My other computer has not upgraded to El Capitan and 1Password works fine. Can I uninstall the El Capitan upgrade? I use 1Password daily and several times a day. It has become quite cumbersome now.

Reply