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All of a sudden, I had the date and time on the menu bar of my 10.6 machine vanish. I tried turning it on in the "Preferences >> Date and Time" section but I'm not able to.

Anyone got similar problems/found a solution to this?

enter image description here

If there's any additional information I can provide you, please let me know. Thanks in advance!

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When you say "not able to" what do you mean? The checkmark appears enabled, so does it select itself? If so, open Console from the Utilities folder and examine the last few entries under "All Messages" when yo try enabling it again. – Christian L Dec 1 '11 at 3:08

6 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

It's possible com.apple.menuextra.clock.plist located in your user /Users/yourShortNameHere/Library/Preferences is corrupted.

Close the System Preferences window. Move that plist out of its directory, and re-launch the System Preferences.

Feedback if it doesn't work.

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Hmm, there was no such file in the first place. I tried creating an empty file with the name, still no results. – wheee Nov 28 '11 at 6:33
You need not create the property list as it is created and maintained by the Date and Time preference pane. The fact that the file isn't there is odd. Are you logged in as a user with Admin privilege? – Global nomad Nov 28 '11 at 9:22
Yes, there is only one user - the current one(admin) I've logged in as. – wheee Nov 28 '11 at 9:47
1  
Since you're logged in as an admin, that rules out permission-related issues that prevents creation of the plist. Do you have a Time Machine backup (preferably the earliest Lion backup when it still works properly)? May be worth a try to recover both the Date and Time preference panel AND the plist I mentioned in the answer above. Revert and let us know if this works. – Global nomad Nov 28 '11 at 15:47
Yup, it did, thank you. – wheee Nov 29 '11 at 16:24
up vote 2 down vote
+75

If the above suggestions doesn't work, I recommend you try creating a fresh new user and reboot/login from there to see if this fixes the issue. There might be a problem with your specific user.

Also what do you exactly mean by: "but I am not able to". What happens when you check the "show date and time" checkbox?

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up vote 1 down vote

Maybe you can restore your permissions? You can find here how to do this. This will return your original permissions by factory settings. Maybe, the problem is caused by something you've done before.

Or you can try and reset your PRAM. It's not really the part which controls the time-management, but it does manage the disk-cache and some additional time-settings.

Maybe the problem will be solved after those two tips.

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up vote 1 down vote

Try launching the menu extra “by hand”. It is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Clock.menu. Try double-clicking that file.

If that does not solve the problem, then launch the Console (in /Applications/Utilities/) and look for something like:

SystemUIServer[205] failed to instantiate and get the principal class of bundle: NSBundle </System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Clock.menu> (not yet loaded)

(anything that mentions Clock.menu actually — should be at the end of the log files)

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up vote 1 down vote

In Finder, open the Go -> Go To Folder menu item. Copy and paste this into the window:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/

it should look like this:

enter image description here

Click 'Go'

Look for "Clock.menu" in that folder and double click on it.

Alternatively, if you are comfortable in the Terminal, use 

open '/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Clock.menu'
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up vote 0 down vote

I had one thought that hasn't been covered. Your computer has a small battery on the motherboard that is supposed to last about 4-5 years. If this battery runs down, the date/time will not be stored. This is a long shot though, as I cannot remember the last time I had this problem - 8 years?

So, if the solutions above do not work, and especially the great suggestion to create a new user, the only recourse left (and it may be a good idea under the circumstances**), is to perform an clean reinstallation of your system.

I presume you have your 10.6.x disk. Make a clone (I like Carbon Copy Cloner) to an external drive, or a complete Time Machine backup.

1.Reinstall Snow Leopard. 2.Check / repair permissions as many times as necessary. 3.Perform Software Updates as many times as necessary. 4.Repeat step 2.

Let us know the outcome. Good luck.

** if there is something screwy with the date and time prefs, then other system functions may also be malfunctioning, and you don't want to end up with bad/missing data.

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It may be helpful to me to know why this post was flamed. I was just trying to help. – David DelMonte Nov 28 '11 at 20:35

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