The issue you are experiencing with your menu bar failing to drop down, getting stuck, and the three color window controls disappearing is a known performance bug usually tied to the macOS graphical rendering engine (WindowServer) or a specific UI manager background process (MenuBarAgent / SystemUIServer).
Because the problem develops gradually over time and is temporarily fixed by logging out or rebooting, it indicates a software memory leak or background conflict rather than a hardware defect with your Mac.
When the menu bar or window controls stop responding, you can force the Mac graphics system to reload manually. This takes 2 seconds and usually restores functionality immediately:
- Relaunch the Dock & Menu Bar: Open the Terminal app (found in Applications > Utilities), type killall Dock and press Enter. This refreshes the hiding/showing mechanism for both the dock and the top menu bar.
- Force Quit SystemUIServer: If the menu bar itself is frozen, open Terminal and run killall SystemUIServer. This instantly reboots the menu bar infrastructure.
- Restart Finder: Hold the Option key, right-click the Finder icon in your Dock, and select Relaunch
Beyond the quick fix, it is possible there are processes running in the background that are using significant resources. Check Activity Monitor, Memory tab (sort by Memory) to see what's running hard. Make sure that View menu > All Processes is selected, so you are seeing everything.
Activity Monitor User Guide for Mac - Apple Support
Confirm that you have sufficient free space on your internal storage. The absolute minimum is ~30-40 GB free space, and as a rule of thumb you should aim to have 15-20% of your total internal storage as free space. You can check the amount of free space you have on your Mac in a variety of ways:
- Select your internal drive then click File menu > Get Info, check Available space
Note that on versions of macOS prior to Golden Gate, the ‘available’ space reported with the first two methods above was greater than the ‘free’ space reported by the second two methods. Apple corrected that confusion with Golden Gate, and as shown in the above screenshot, the available/free space is consistent across the different methods. For more details, see this User Tip.
Some steps to take to safely free up space:
Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support
Optimize storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
How to free up ‘System Data’ and other st… - Apple Community
If nothing in the above reveals an obvious culprit, then appropriate troubleshooting steps are Safe Mode and creating a new user account to test.
See if the problem is present when you boot in safe mode. That process performs some system cleanup and clears caches, and also disables 3rd party extensions that may cause problems.
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
If that does not correct the issue, test in a new user account. A newly-created user account will have all settings at default, and if the issue does not occur in that new account then it provides guidance on what may need to be changed to correct the issue.
Add a user or group on Mac - Apple Support
Once the testing is complete, the new account can easily be deleted.
Delete a user or group on Mac – Apple Support
If you have 3rd party ‘protection’ software installed, that may be the problem. That includes:
- Cleaners (software claiming to automatically free up space)
- Optimizers (software claiming to make your Mac run faster)
- Antivirus software
- VPN software (unless provided by a school/employer to enable access to internal resources from a remote location)
Such 3rd party system ‘helpers’, ‘cleaners’ and ‘protectors’ do more harm than good. In fact, such products are completely unnecessary for macOS and the only ‘good’ (if you want to call it that) they do is to put money in the developers’ pockets. Cleaners and protectors cause compatibility issues, often after macOS updates. Commercial VPNs claim to hide your browsing activity from websites, and while that may be true those VPN providers just sell your browsing data to others. For the user, all of these types of software offer only harm…and if that is limited to harm to your bank account, then count yourself lucky. If you have installed such software, follow the developer’s instructions to completely uninstall it (note that some developers fail to provide instructions and their software installs can be pervasive, meaning the only way to truly remove it is to erase your Mac, reinstall macOS then restore your user files from a backup).
It might help to download and run EtreCheck, written by a long-time forum member. The free version is fine. Post the full report using the Additional Text button. No personal information is revealed.
