The top menu bar is missing and everything is disabled

Hello guys,

I had to turn off my machine by holding the power button down because it froze. After I turned it back on, the top bar is missing, I cannot click finder items as they are grayed out and I am not able to type.


I have tried resetting SMC and NVRAM. Nothing works. Any ideas what may be causing this and a fix for it?


It is a Intel macBook Pro 15" running macOS Monterey 12.7.6


I have attached a screenshot below.


Thank you in advance for your help and time!

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Oct 22, 2025 4:35 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 22, 2025 7:13 PM

"The top menu bar is missing and everything is disabled: Hello guys, I had to turn off my machine by holding the power button down because it froze. After I turned it back on, the top bar is missing, I cannot click finder items as they are grayed out and I am not able to type."

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Troubleshooting an Unresponsive Mac:


1. Get to Finder:

See if you can get to Finder, and then Force Quit all items:

See my User Tip: [command + tab] Use it to Access your Mac when Something is Not Responding - User Tip


then...

2. Boot Into Safe Mode:

Shut Down your macOS, and then boot into Safe Mode. Go here: Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support. In Safe Mode, restiveness ought to work, work because in Safe Mode, items only load as they would be default). Once in Safe Mode, wait 30 seconds, reboot, and see what occurs. If you have one, use and external keyboard for this.

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 22, 2025 7:13 PM in response to CenturyPixel2011

"The top menu bar is missing and everything is disabled: Hello guys, I had to turn off my machine by holding the power button down because it froze. After I turned it back on, the top bar is missing, I cannot click finder items as they are grayed out and I am not able to type."

-------


Troubleshooting an Unresponsive Mac:


1. Get to Finder:

See if you can get to Finder, and then Force Quit all items:

See my User Tip: [command + tab] Use it to Access your Mac when Something is Not Responding - User Tip


then...

2. Boot Into Safe Mode:

Shut Down your macOS, and then boot into Safe Mode. Go here: Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support. In Safe Mode, restiveness ought to work, work because in Safe Mode, items only load as they would be default). Once in Safe Mode, wait 30 seconds, reboot, and see what occurs. If you have one, use and external keyboard for this.

Oct 23, 2025 6:56 PM in response to CenturyPixel2011

"I don't understand what the problem is. I feel like if I can manage to shutdown or restart the Mac without having to force shutdown by using the power button, this issue will be resolved. Given the situation, how can I shut down or restart the Mac?"

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Thanks for the video.


Reinstall the macOS:

If you are able to type a password, or are simply able to click, to log into the Mac, then there's no obvious hardware problem. I'd say take it a step further, and try a macOS reinstall. Thing is, if you never backed up your Mac, and this fails, then you'd likely have to reinstall it all anew.


How to Reinstall the macOS:

Nothing would be lost. It's just that misplaced items would be placed back to where they should be and corrupt system files would be replaced by clean files. Go Here: Reinstall macOS - Apple Support.

Oct 23, 2025 2:48 AM in response to TheLittles

Thank you so much for your response.


1) I am not able to do that as for some weird reason the keyboard keys are not registering. I can open the Finder window, put cannot click anything. I have attached a screen recording for your viewing.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VddLPYFKVIzU2Kiz8p5N9Gl09X5R1coO/view?usp=drivesdk


I even tried opening Terminal to stop finder or execute Shutdown command. Since the system will not allow me to type, I wrote the command in another Mac device so that using the Mac's Universal Handoff feature I could copy it there and paste it on the machine with problem. I did that, but could not execute it because it will not let me press Enter as in the screen recording.


2) I had already tried this as well. I even went into the Disk Utility and ran First Aid. Tried restarting from safe mode, tried shutting down from safe mode and starting normally. Tried selecting the target disk to start in etc.


No joy at all. This has happened before and I was able to solve it by resetting the SMC I think. Now nothing works.


I don't understand what the problem is. I feel like if I can manage to shutdown or restart the Mac without having to force shutdown by using the power button, this issue will be resolved. Given the situation, how can I shut down or restart the Mac?

The top menu bar is missing and everything is disabled

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