Application Menu Issue Topic is solved

[asimperson]

I've been using Pale Moon for Mac for a couple of years and have had this issue throughout. This is a common issue that I think we've gone over in the release threads and it's probably time for an actual thread. Since this is Mac-specific, I think this is probably the best forum for this thread, but if not I apologize.

This screenshot captures the issue:


I've tried "restart the browser until it works workaround but it doesn't work for me. The only thing that does is creating a completely new profile. That'd be a workaround, but it's not a fix. The profile I use on my personal Mac is old and crufty, so I can understand that. The profile on my work laptop is much, much newer but I still have issues there as well.

I use Pale Moon as my daily browser on the Mac so this isn't a breaking issue, but I hope this provides more information in one place. Please let me know if there's anything else you may need from me.

[Moonchild]

Now, I'm not entirely familiar with the Mac application menu, myself (I don't own the hardware), but it seems that you have a full menu bar visible. In that case, there wouldn't have to be an "application menu" under "Palemoon"; All your options would be in the normal menu to the right of it. I'm assuming there is an option to deselect the menu bar under View, which would be the trigger for a populated application menu? Or am i completely misunderstanding the issue?

[SpockFan02]

it seems that you have a full menu bar visible. In that case, there wouldn't have to be an "application menu" under "Palemoon"; All your options would be in the normal menu to the right of it. I'm assuming there is an option to deselect the menu bar under View, which would be the trigger for a populated application menu? Or am i completely misunderstanding the issue?

Not completely; yes, there is more menu to the right, but it does not contain everything that should appear when you click on Palemoon—Namely, About Pale Moon, which displays the version, etc., and Preferences..., which is rather important.

I've tried "restart the browser until it works workaround but it doesn't work for me. The only thing that does is creating a completely new profile. That'd be a workaround, but it's not a fix.

Yeah, the restarting didn't do it for me, but what did was to restart the browser while creating a new profile, and then restart again, switching back to my normal profile. awalp said to use

Code: Select all

open /Applications/Palemoon.app --args -P

in Terminal, and when I did that and followed those steps, the full menu came back:

Screenshot 2017-11-28 11.13.23.png

Do you mean to say that this only fixed it for the new profile that you created, and the issue came back when you switched back to your old profile? If that's the case, I don't know what to say, but hopefully this helps.

[Goodydino]

Are you trying to quit or restart? It is not clear which you mean. Quitting can be done in more than one way. What I usually do is right-click the icon in the dock and choose "Quit". For restarting, there are extensions you can get which will give you a restart button. Two of them are in the Pale Moon extensions list.

[SpockFan02]

For restarting, there are extensions you can get which will give you a restart button. Two of them are in the Pale Moon extensions list.

Wait, is this not a thing without extensions? For me, File-->Restart restarts the browser (although it for some reason makes another item on the dock instead of using the one I have there permanently... But that's a separate minor issue).

[sugis]

I've experienced this problem intermittently, without reloading or changing profiles it usually disappears on its own.
I also have File -> Restart without any particular extension, so it's probably a builtin.

I agree that the symptom is that the 'Palemoon' menu is nearly empty as the screenshot above shows (which is *not* the File menu, and mostly has system services like "Hide Pale Moon" or "Preferences".
I've not personally felt it much because all the important features (quit, hide, prefs) are available through key shortcuts or other menus (Tools -> Advanced options is the same as Preferences, for example)

[SpockFan02]

Yeah, there are keyboard shortcuts and other ways of getting to stuff (although I'm not sure about About Pale Moon), so it's not the worst issue in the world.

[verdant]

A restart works for me so far on OS X 10.6.8. Is it an issue with some OS X versions more than others?

[asimperson]

Do you mean to say that this only fixed it for the new profile that you created, and the issue came back when you switched back to your old profile? If that's the case, I don't know what to say, but hopefully this helps.

Yes, it only fixes it for the new profile. Also, to be clear when I said "restart" in the OP I meant fully quitting the browser and restarting it.

Yeah, there are keyboard shortcuts and other ways of getting to stuff (although I'm not sure about About Pale Moon), so it's not the worst issue in the world.

Interestingly, I just tried the keyboard shortcuts shown in your screenshot and none of them work other than Cmd+Q.

I've not personally felt it much because all the important features (quit, hide, prefs) are available through key shortcuts or other menus (Tools -> Advanced options is the same as Preferences, for example)

Tools -> Advanced Options is provided by the Pale Moon Commander extension and doesn't reflect the full range of preferences. I can get around not being able to get to the actual preferences menu by using about:config and/or PMC most of the time, but there are some cases (i.e., wrangling SSL certificates on my work laptop) that I'm not sure there's any other interface for.

[Goodydino]

I did not even notice the restart item in the File menu. I have a restart button from MR Tech Toolkit, which is what I use to restart, so I never looked in the file menu for that. The one that came with Pale Moon works. Neither Firefox nor SeaMonkey had that feature.

[asimperson]

I did some more digging and it looks like Firefox had this issue at some point as well: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1063358. Later tonight I'll dig through Bugzilla to see if this got reported at some point and perhaps fixed. I'll also try to take a look at what generates the menu in source, but while I'm a programmer I don't have any experience writing applications for the Mac.

[SpockFan02]

Do you mean to say that this only fixed it for the new profile that you created, and the issue came back when you switched back to your old profile? If that's the case, I don't know what to say, but hopefully this helps.

Yes, it only fixes it for the new profile.

Uh-oh! That's strange... :/

Interestingly, I just tried the keyboard shortcuts shown in your screenshot and none of them work other than Cmd+Q.

Huh, so it's not just missing menu items. Also, it sounds like the same thing was happening in support.mozilla.org thread you linked.

I guess I can consider myself lucky that I was able to fix it for me, but it sucks that this is still persisting on your profile. If only we knew what the cause of this was! Something in the profile that changes when you update Pale Moon?

[JustOff]

It seems here is the solution.

[Moonchild]

So.. this commit should fix it then? should apply cleanly to our tree.
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla ... b9ccbfb490

[SpockFan02]

Oh man!

Did Pale Moon just miss out on this one with the last re-base?

[New Tobin Paradigm]

Pale Moon or any of our projects are experimental at best when it comes to the Macintosh. No one engaged in primary development has access to the hardware or a viable vitualized environment and MacOS presents unique challenges that could really use full on primary developmental focus.

While those who have been working on builds and Macintosh focused improvements have done a spectacular job given the inability for any of the rest of us to do more than basicly guess and suggest based on experence when it comes to Apple's operating system.. There is only so much they can do on there own without the pool of experience with the codebase we all as a group have aquired.

Unlike Windows or the Linux which everybody can setup and develop and test on regardless of their primary areas of focus, the people doing Pale Moon for Mac are largely on their own.

It is a source of frustration for the rest of us that our support to them is, at the end of the day, limited without ways to directly test our theories and assumptions ourselves regarding development. Just comes down to a series of "Try this" and wait to see if it worked for them or not. It can be tedious because if some of us could just.. Try it our selves and help them where they may not be experts at corner of the codebase where someone else is.

So please take this into account next time something on mac doesn't work and needs fixing.

Peace.

[sugis]

There's a candidate fix in now awaiting testing, I uploaded it over the original release accidentally, http://mac.palemoon.org/dist/palemoon-27.6.1.mac64.dmg
Any reports back of it working or not appreciated!

[JustOff]

I confirm this change fixes the issue: all items are displayed on the first start

[verdant]

yes, I can confirm the fix works for OS X 10.6.8 - all details appear on first start....

[asimperson]

Works for me as well, thanks a bunch folks!