Menu and Dock suddenly disappear...

[TDH1978]

A friend of mine has an 2023 M2 16" MacBook Pro, running macOS Sonoma.
Sometimes, for no obvious reason, the Menu and Dock disappear and do
not come back. Pressing Esc does not help. Pressing Command + Tab
does not show running application. Clicking folders on the desktop
does work, but the Menu and Dock do not reappear. However, if I go to
the Applications folder and click on any application (e.g. Safari),
both the Menu and Dock reappear. But as soon as I quit the
application, the Menu and Dock disappear again. Only when I reboot the
machine do things go back to normal. I have checked the Systems
Settings but can't see anything unusual. Does anyone know what's going
on?

[Your Name]

Post by TDH1978
A friend of mine has an 2023 M2 16" MacBook Pro, running macOS Sonoma.
Sometimes, for no obvious reason, the Menu and Dock disappear and do
not come back. Pressing Esc does not help. Pressing Command + Tab
does not show running application. Clicking folders on the desktop
does work, but the Menu and Dock do not reappear. However, if I go to
the Applications folder and click on any application (e.g. Safari),
both the Menu and Dock reappear. But as soon as I quit the
application, the Menu and Dock disappear again. Only when I reboot the
machine do things go back to normal. I have checked the Systems
Settings but can't see anything unusual. Does anyone know what's going
on?

In recent versions of MacOS, there is an option in System Settings >
Desktop & Dock > Menu Bar to "Automatically hide and show the menu bar"
which you may need to change.

Possibly they are accidentally going into "full screen app" mode (try
pressing Command-Control-F to toggle full screen on and off). Maybe
check which gestures the trackpad is able to use - there might be one
there for hiding teh menu bar / dock that they are doing by accident.
(Whenever I set up a new Mac, I turn off all the trackpad / Magic Mouse
gestures, among many other annoying "features", especially if the
computer is being owned by a novice user. The accidental gesture is one
of the biggest causes of "my computer is doing something weird"
problems.)

If that doesn't help, then it's likely a bug. I have noticed that
happen very occasionally for decades (why back to System 6, so long
before MacOS X), sometimes due to an app crashing, especially a game
that hides the menubar. A reboot is probably the easiest way. Other
possible quicker fix might be to Option-click on the Finder in the Dock
and choose "Relaunch" (you may need to be in another app to see the
Dock first though).

[Bernd Froehlich]

Post by TDH1978
A friend of mine has an 2023 M2 16" MacBook Pro, running macOS Sonoma.
Sometimes, for no obvious reason, the Menu and Dock disappear and do
not come back. Pressing Esc does not help. Pressing Command + Tab
does not show running application. Clicking folders on the desktop
does work, but the Menu and Dock do not reappear. However, if I go to
the Applications folder and click on any application (e.g. Safari),
both the Menu and Dock reappear. But as soon as I quit the
application, the Menu and Dock disappear again. Only when I reboot the
machine do things go back to normal. I have checked the Systems
Settings but can't see anything unusual. Does anyone know what's going
on?

Sounds like the finder crashed.
Press cmd-option-esc and restart the finder.

Now finding the cause for those crashes is somthing different...

[Alan Browne]

Post by TDH1978
A friend of mine has an 2023 M2 16" MacBook Pro, running macOS Sonoma.
Sometimes, for no obvious reason, the Menu and Dock disappear and do not
come back.  Pressing Esc does not help.  Pressing Command + Tab does not
show running application.  Clicking folders on the desktop does work,
but the Menu and Dock do not reappear.  However, if I go to the
Applications folder and click on any application (e.g. Safari), both the
Menu and Dock reappear.  But as soon as I quit the application, the Menu
and Dock disappear again.  Only when I reboot the machine do things go
back to normal.  I have checked the Systems Settings but can't see
anything unusual.  Does anyone know what's going on?

Adding to the other replies, since Sonoma I've had settings randomly
change a few times (it seems).

- Ethernet speed setting ( a dozen+ times over the last couple months )
- Media sharing ( at least twice )
- others that don't come to mind

IAC - verify
- Settings | Control Settings | Automatically hide and show the menu bar

- Desktop and dock | Automatically hide and show the Dock


Also run down all accessibility settings as they sometimes go a step
further ...