Bowler hat not showing in menu bar

[lesormonde]

I recently migrated to a new M3 MacBook pro running Sonoma.

Although Alfred works on the new machine and the power pack licence is activated, the bowler hat does not appear in the menu bar. The 'hide menu bar icon' checkbox in preferences -> Appearance -> Options is unchecked. Nothing I do appears to make a difference. 

 

Any advice much appreciated.

[Stephen_C]

Welcome to the forum.

 

43 minutes ago, lesormonde said:

I recently migrated to a new M3 MacBook pro running Sonoma.

Did you migrate your apss and preferences using the Migration Assistant.app? If so, have you tried simply re-installing Alfred? (The Migration Assistant is known for sometimes producing rather strange results after it has been used, which is why I asked.)

 

Stephen

[lesormonde]

16 hours ago, Stephen_C said:

Welcome to the forum.

 

Did you migrate your apss and preferences using the Migration Assistant.app? If so, have you tried simply re-installing Alfred? (The Migration Assistant is known for sometimes producing rather strange results after it has been used, which is why I asked.)

 

Stephen

Hi, thx for the response. I did use migration assistant.

Is there a preferred method for doing the reinstall or do I simply go to the web site, download and re set up?

[Stephen_C]

I'd just re-download and install over the existing: all your settings should be retained.

 

Stephen

[Vero]

@lesormonde Do you use any third-party tools that manage your menu bar (e.g. Bartender) that could be hiding icons automatically?

 

If you're not using one of these apps, could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address so that I can take a look at your preferences.

[lesormonde]

5 hours ago, Vero said:

@lesormonde Do you use any third-party tools that manage your menu bar (e.g. Bartender) that could be hiding icons automatically?

 

If you're not using one of these apps, could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address so that I can take a look at your preferences.

I am not using any 3rd Party tools.  Diagnostic file sent to info@.

Just a thought: it might be useful to be able to attach diagnostic files to this conversation. Sorry if I am stating the obvious, L.O.

[Vero]

@lesormonde I've had a look at your Diagnostics, and the option to hide the menu bar hat isn't set.

 

First, could you please open Appearance > Options and take a screenshot of your preferences? Share the screenshot in your reply so that I can see your settings.

 

Next, if the box for "hide menu bar icon" is ticked, please quit the preferences and re-open them. Is the box still ticked? (This will allow us to check if your preferences are being correctly saved or whether there is a permission issue)

 

Let me know how you get on.

[lesormonde]

 Sorry, screenshot is too big even when compressed. (compressed partiaLscreenshot is 1.3 MB)

I can confirm (as previously) that the 'hide menu bar icon' checkbox is definitely not checked.

 

[Vero]

@lesormonde If you do check one of the boxes, quit Alfred's preferences and relaunch them, are changed preferences retained?

[lesormonde]

I checked  The 'hide menu bar icon' checkbox, closed preferences and then went back in to preferences. The checkbox remained checked. I then did the same thing but unchecking the checkbox and this time the checkbox remained unchecked. 

[Stephen_C]

1 minute ago, lesormonde said:

closed preferences and then went back in to preferences

Just for complete clarification…did you:

48 minutes ago, Vero said:

quit Alfred's preferences and relaunch them,

(My emphasis.)

 

Stephen

[lesormonde]

I sure did.

On 3/24/2024 at 10:10 AM, Vero said:

@lesormonde Do you use any third-party tools that manage your menu bar (e.g. Bartender) that could be hiding icons automatically?

 

If you're not using one of these apps, could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address so that I can take a look at your preferences.

 

[Vero]

@lesormonde To summarise, taking a look at the Diagnostics you've sent in, I can see that Alfred is configured correctly so that the menu bar icon should be visible, so there is no misconfiguration on Alfred's side.

 

If you restart your Mac with Alfred launching at startup, do you see the bowler hat at any point? 

 

Taking a look at the screenshot you sent in, there are two clocks (at the two ends of your menu bar) and quite a few icons, which indicates that you have multiple apps using menu bar space.

 

As a final thought, I would suggest creating a new user account on your Mac temporarily, and launching Alfred with no other third-party apps configured. If the bowler hat appears normally on this new profile, it confirms that something in your main profile (a third-party app, most likely) is "managing" the menu bar for you.

[lesormonde]

Hi,

 

I killed istat menus and the bowler hat has reappeared. 

That appears to indicate the problem is resolved.

Strange that the two items of software have coexisted for years and only caused a problem on transfer to a new machine.

Many thanks for your help.

[Stephen_C]

6 hours ago, lesormonde said:

I killed istat menus and the bowler hat has reappeared.

While that may have resolved the problem for you I'm not sure why—because I, too, use iStat Menus and can show or hide the Alfred menu bar icon depending on my choice in Alfred Preferences. However, I do use the Bartender menu bar app so maybe it's a mattter, for you, of the quantity of menu bar items rather than any inherent conflict. Just an idea…

 

Stephen

[Tsunami]

22 hours ago, lesormonde said:

Strange that the two items of software have coexisted for years and only caused a problem on transfer to a new machine.

 

If you moved to an MBP with a smaller screen, naturally there is less space for the icons. The notch also takes up space in the menubar.