cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
EN
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Bug with ghost menu backgrounds sticking around on-screen on macOS

Hi everyone, over the past few weeks I've noticed a recurring issue on Archicad 29 (not sure if 28 is also affected, right now I'm only working on AC29 projects) on macOS. I'm on the latest version of both Archicad (29.0.2) and macOS Tahoe (26.2).

The issue is that sometimes, you will have an Archicad menu background that remains on-screen on your Archicad window, and totally impairs your ability to work. See image below as one example that happened today.

CleanShot 2025-12-21 at 08.31.46@2x.png

The image above shows an example of the ghost menu background that is left after the menu goes away.

 

This is the File menu that generated this ghost background.

CleanShot 2025-12-21 at 08.59.50@2x.png

At first, I thought this issue was totally random, and that only happened after working in Archicad for a while.  Sometimes it would not appear at all.

Today I figured out at least the situation under which this happens.

I work on a dual-monitor setup, with two 5K displays side-by-side. I will usually have Archicad on one screen, some extra palettes on part of the second screen, and then I have some extra room for maybe a browser window, our internal chat, etc.

I've identified that this ghost menu appears whenever I am doing something on a non-Archicad window on the second screen (I think this happens usually with my browser -Chrome- or my email program - I use Spark Mail), maybe due to an interruption, or maybe I'm researching something that I need for my Archicad work on Chrome, etc., and I am active on the non-Archicad window. If I come back to Archicad and simply click on the Archicad window somewhere (kind of just to make it the active screen), then all is good and nothing happens. But if I come back to Archicad, and before clicking on the window somewhere, I click directly on an Archicad menu that's where this ghost menu will appear. It does not happen every time, but that's the situation under which it does happen.

Today it happened, but I was in the middle of doing something, and kept working with this ghost partially blocking my Archicad screen, and then I repeated the behaviour (I was looking for some product specs and entering information as properties), and this time I clicked on the Options Menu (I already had the ghost of the file menu), and then I was left with two ghost menus.

If you click on any other window or program, the ghost menus go away (and the Archicad screen looks clean), but when you click back to the Archicad window, then the ghost menus return. Once they appear, the only wat to make them go away is to close Archicad entirely and reopen Archicad, then you have a clean workspace window again.

I'm pretty sure this has some relationship to macOS's new transparency look. I'll make one test later today setting the macOS window transparency to opaque and see if this makes any difference. If it does, I'll report it here too.

Roderick Anderson - CEO & Design Director - SARCO Architects Costa Rica
AC29 SPA - AC09
Macbook Pro M4 Max 64GB ram, OS X 26.2 Tahoe
20 Replies 20
BulldogBen
Booster

Honestly now I know the cause I have hardly suffered from it, it's amazing what a good diagnosis can do. Thanks ArchiCAD.

Still looking?

Browse more topics

Back to forum

See latest solutions

Accepted solutions

Start a new discussion!