Menu Bar titles are not visible.

[kennycarruthers]

Here's a bit of a weird bug. In some of my Virtual Machines (macOS Ventura as guest and host), the main menu bar's menu item titles are not visible.

In the light Appearance, they appear to be drawn in the same color as the menu bar itself. In the dark Appearance, they are slightly more visible as the contrast increases.

I have one Virtual Machine where this does not happen, but for all other Virtual Machines this is the case. Even a brand new machine, created from macOS 13.2 and freshly booted into exhibits this issue.

As anyone else seen this?

Virtual Buddy: Version 1.2.2 (10)
Machine: MBP 14" M1 Pro with external LG 4K Display
Host: macOS Ventura 13.1
Guest: macOS Ventura 13.2

Issue was also present when using built-in display, and running macOS 13.1 on both instances.

Note lack of menu bar titles in Light Appearance:

In Dark Appearance, with more contrast, the menu bar titles are slightly more visible:

[kennycarruthers]

I should add the the menu bar items on the right side of the screen, which includes the current datetime, Spotlight icon and Control Center icon are displayed in the correct color. So it's only the menu bar items on the left side of the menu bar. This applies to all applications.

[blakegonzales]

I have the same exact issue. It's been happening since I upgraded to Ventura.

And the right side menu bar items are fine like @kennycarruthers

Virtual Buddy: Version 1.2.2 (10)
Machine: MBP 14" M1 Pro with external Dell 4K Display
Host: macOS Ventura 13.2
Guest: macOS Venture 13.2

[kennycarruthers]

Exploring this issue a bit more, the problem seems to occur when the Display resolution is set to too large of a value. If you reduce the Display resolution, then the menu bar titles are correctly drawn.

I was able to reproduce this bug in Apple's Virtualization sample code app. I have yet to figure out which combination of resolution and pixels-per-inch is the tipping point. However, I did notice that Virtual Buddy was defaulting to 6016 x 3384 at 144 ppi, which is "too large".

Reducing that down to 3840 x 2160 at 80 ppi allows the menus to draw properly.

[kennycarruthers]

From what I can tell, this is a bug in macOS when virtualized as I can easily reproduce this problem using Apple's sample code app.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the bug presents itself given the number of variables, but as an example:

• 4176 x 2349 @ 80ppi, Good
• 4192 x 2358 @ 80ppi, Fails

These are whole resolutions based on a standard 4k aspect ratio of 16:9 (3840 x 2160). If you change the aspect ratio to 16:10, then you get different results. Changing the memory given to the guest VM does not appear to make a difference, nor does changing the PPI.

Because of this issue, there doesn't appear to be a configuration that allows a virtualized macOS' display to be as sharp as the host's display. In other words, a guest macOS window that is set to 3840 x 2160 and maximized on a 4k external display also at 3840 x 2160 is not as sharp as host macOS' window maximized on the same display.

[blakegonzales]

I can confirm these results. Furthermore, it appears only the width seems to affect the issue. The menu bar displays correctly for me at 4176 x 3384 @ 144ppi

[kennycarruthers]

FWIW, I've filed a Radar on this issue and made a post on Apple's Developer Forums:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/724166

This does not appear to be a bug in Virtual Buddy as it's entirely reproducible using Apple's Sample Code.

[insidegui]

Thanks for taking the time to explore this issue and report it to Apple. Indeed I have noticed it myself and concluded that it's in fact a macOS bug when running under virtualization. Let's hope they fix it soon 🤞🏻

[jorgepinon]

I have the same problem and it improves if I disable "Reduce Transparency" and "Increase Contrast" in Accessibility Settings. The left side is still about 50% more faded than the right, but it's at least visible.