macOS 26.5.2: Ice stuck / menu bar stays hidden after form dropdown hang (Dock auto-hide also stuck)

[aliafshany]

Summary

When opening form/select dropdowns (native popups — e.g. country pickers on websites, tag choosers in apps), the foreground app often freezes or crashes. After that:

1. Ice stops responding (cannot show/hide sections, menu bar items stay hidden)
2. Dock stays auto-hidden until the stuck app is force-quit
3. Only killing the app (and sometimes Ice / Dock) restores normal UI

This is not the app menu bar (File / Edit). It is popup / HTML <select> / NSPopUp style dropdowns.

Environment

Item	Value
Ice	0.11.12 (build 1117)
Bundle ID	com.jordanbaird.Ice
macOS	26.5.2 (25F84) Tahoe
Hardware	MacBook Pro Mac14,7, Apple M2, 8 GB
Dock	Auto-hide ON
Ice settings	HideApplicationMenus = ON, ShowOnHover = ON (0.1s), ShowOnClick = OFF, UseIceBar = OFF, AutoRehide = ON

Also running other Accessibility clients (iStat Menus, BetterDisplay, Swish, Input Source Pro, CleanShot X, etc.).

Steps to reproduce

1. Ice running with sections hidden as usual (hover-to-show enabled).
2. Dock auto-hide enabled.
3. Open Helium (or another app) on a form with a native-style dropdown (country list, tags, HTML <select>).
4. Click the dropdown to open the option list.
5. App freezes or crashes mid-popup.
6. Observe: Ice no longer reveals hidden items; Dock does not unhide on hover until the app is force-quit.

Expected

• Opening a form dropdown should not leave Ice stuck.
• After app hang/crash, Ice and Dock should return to a consistent state without force-quit / killall Ice.

Actual

• Ice becomes non-interactive; hidden menu bar content stays hidden.
• Dock remains auto-hidden.
• Recovery typically requires force-quit of the stuck app, and often:

killall Ice
killall Dock
open -a Ice

Crash evidence (Helium — Chromium)

Repeated Helium crashes while native popup menus are tracking (same path as form selects). 6× reports in ~5 days under ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Helium-*.ips.

Exception: EXC_BREAKPOINT / SIGTRAP via +[NSApplication _crashOnException:]

Representative stack:

-[NSPopUpButtonCell trackMouse:inRect:ofView:untilMouseUp:]
-[NSCocoaMenuImpl popUpMenu:...]
_NSPopUpMenu
+[NSContextMenuImpl presentPopup:fromView:withContext:animated:]
-[NSContextMenuTrackingSession startMonitoringEvents:]
-[NSMenuTrackingSession startRunningMenuEventLoop:]
...
-[NSWindow(NSDisplayCycle) _postWindowNeedsLayout]  // NSException
+[NSApplication _crashOnException:]

Alternate path also seen: NSMenuBarTrackingSession → menu event loop → same layout exception.

Ice does not appear in the crash frames (no Ice symbols on the faulting stack). Ice is implicated as aftermath stuck state when the system is mid–menu-tracking / after the hang, not necessarily as the process that crashes.

Related report

Helium issue (browser-side crash): imputnet/helium#2188

Request / questions for maintainers

1. Does Ice install event monitors or menu-bar observers that can race with NSMenuTrackingSession / popup menus (especially with Hide Application Menus + Show on Hover)?
2. Can Ice detect a broken / stuck hide state and self-recover when the frontmost app dies mid-menu-tracking?
3. Is there a recommended setting combo on Tahoe 26.5 for users who hit this (e.g. disable Hide Application Menus + Show on Hover)?

Happy to attach Ice console logs, a sysdiagnose, or test nightlies if useful.

Thanks!