Post by: Xairbusdriver on May 31, 2015, 04:02:12 PM
I'd already been using Screen Sharing for months, so that would/should suffice for the rare moments when I needed to actually enter some data or click a button. That meant I could also remove the keyboard and make more room for another stack of papers that I eventually stick into the 12 slot, mostly IN box!
Things were fine until yesterday when I finally noticed that the Menu Bar was almost completely black!
I knew I had been using "Dark" mode, but changing that didn't help. None of the other Accessibility settings did much of anything (clue 1). Decided I may have been asking too much from the Display Color settings, but I was getting no visible response from any of the controls (clue 2).I finally decided an interweb search was my only the only solution. Of course, search results are highly dependent on how the search is worded! I found thousands of hits explaining how to enable/use/set Yosemite's "Dark" mode. Thanks, but that's not the problem, folks... But my perseverance (many call in my hard-headed, mule-like stubbornness
) paid off when I found a thread entitled exactly what I had searched for! <How can I get rid of a black menu bar?> There were actually two ways to 'fix' the problem. One is a command to paste into Terminal (or into the Terminal access box in PathFinder). The other is a hardware, and supposedly permanent one, it even comes in two varieties!The problem is that without a monitor connected to the mini (and some even report the same problem with the Mac Pro!), the GPU gets 'confused' as to what to show and how. Images, windows, text, icons, most other stuff, no problem. "Menu Bar"? That sounds like some kind of candy! What does that have to do with computers, besides, Windows has the Menu bar in every window, right?
The Terminal 'fix' is subject to being erased by a loss of power shutdown or other un-controlable memory happenings. The kind of "memory happenings" from which I seem to be experiencing more and more.
The hardware solution has proven so successful that there is now an OS agnostic, relatively cheap, manufactured, extremely niche product available at Amazon!! For those with more time than aesthetics, there is the
Post by: Paddy on May 31, 2015, 10:51:20 PM
Interesting - I had no idea that a Mini or a Mac Pro cared if you ran it headless. I would hope/assume that if you were running OS X SERVER that this wouldn't be an issue?
Post by: Xairbusdriver on June 01, 2015, 08:29:15 AM
QUOTE
I had no idea that a Mini or a Mac Pro cared if you ran it headless.
Personally, I can think of times when I would have probably been better off without my head...QUOTE
I would hope/assume that if you were running OS X SERVER that this wouldn't be an issue?
I've never had any experience running any computer without a monitor. "Server" operation may actually be the real market for these devices. I noted in the Amazon comments that many were from Windows users who probably have more headless hardware because of it is often much cheaper. 
I think it is more a function of Apple using more software control of the video. I suspect that most non-Apple monitors have built-in controls that allows them to work with practically any hardware. Also, "Servers" probably don't have much use for the Menu Bar and have the Server access/controls window open all the time. Being 'headless' also negates the old phosphor burn in and even the LCD ghosting problem. I'll probably order one today... using my iMac and screen! 