The following is a roundup of how to fix your missing menu bar items after running Front Row Enabler.
Why: The menu bar items fail to launch because the bezel services file ends up getting “doubled” patched, IF you have already used an earlier version of Front Row Enabler in the past.
The Quick Fix: Download this ZIP file (Credit: “Weisheng“) or download the 10.4.5 combo updater from Apple. The “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BezelServices.framework“, needs to be replaced, and “/System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin“. To replace the files, first drag the old ones to the Trash, you will most likely be asked to authenticate to continue (e.g. putting in your user name and password). Then drag in the new copies, again authenticating if need be.
Once replaced, you need to run the following commands in the terminal to correct the ownership of the replaced files:
"sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BezelServices.framework"
"sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin"
What this does is, sudo (do the following command as a Super User), chown (change ownership), -R (recursively: to each item within that directory, and below).
If you do not do this, the files you have replaced will not have root (a.k.a system) ownership. This may cause all sorts of problems later on.
Note: It is not necessary to remove Front Row from “/System/Library/CoreServices/ to bring your menu bar back!
Next, to get Front Row running again. If you haven’t removed Front Row, run the LATEST version of Front Row Enabler, and hit the enable button. This will patch (once) the files that just have been replaced. Then logout, Front Row should run again and your menu bar should be fine. If you have removed Front Row, then you must carefully follow the instructions at: http://www.andrewescobar.com/frontrow/.
If you have questions for me, please post them.
Any updates to this post? The links do not work anymore
The site andrewescobar.com seems to be down now. I don’t have any links to Front Row enabler. You may still be able to get it from Mac Update, but at this point its probably completely unmaintained and won’t work in newer versions of OS X. The links to replacement files and combo update still work fine.