NSMenu items greyed/disabled for not apparent reason

We have similar code, and I removed the -setTarget call and saw the disabled state.

As Willeke stated, it is because your object isn't in the responder chain.

So just make sure you explicitly set the target property:

  NSMenuItem *item = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Start" action:@selector(startServer:) keyEquivalent:@""];
  [item setTarget:self];
  [menu addItem:item];