JVC HR-S9900U menu?
 

Do I have to have an analog monitor to be able to see the menu in the 9900 or am I missing something really simple? My TVs and capture device show no signal when tapes are not playing, and I can’t get the menu to come up when they are. I have not had this issue with any other JVCs made before or after this one.

Menu's video is not conform to standards, So yes not all capture cards or software can display it, But a TV even modern ones should be able to display it as long as you are connecting the VCR via an analog connection.
Did you do the basic checks, like remote battery is not dead, VCR is responding to the remote commends by noticing if the VCR display changes... etc.

Yes, I tried both the button on the front panel and multiple JVC remotes. S video, composite, and coax outputs. Also fed it through an es10. When I press menu after powering up, the mode does switch to vcr on the front display but nothing shows up on the screen. When I press navigation, a window pops up. The channel buttons on the remote and front panel work to scroll up and down, and the ok buttons work on both as well. When I press menu, the screen remains but the channel buttons go back to changing the channels, and I have to power off to get rid of the menu

Make sure you are playing a video while the menu is displayed.

The video keeps playing when I hit menu on either the remote or the machine itself. Is this normal for this machine?

It's normal for any machine, Otherwise how are you gonna see the changes you make.

@packsnap, do you mean the menu does not appear, even when the video is playing?

I have a JVC 5800. With a video playing, when I hit Menu, the whole screen is taken over by the menu.

But if I don't have a tape playing, the JVC menus are sometimes mis-shaped, with horizontal lines across the screen in the lower third and the bright blue sometimes being replaced by broken grey.

Sometimes, hitting menu when using VCR Composite straight to my GV-USB 2 capture dongle even froze everything!

Consistent Menu behaviour/response occurred when using S-Video Out through a Panny "TBC". Even then, I still had the broken grey screen if a tape wasn't playing.

To reiterate, I consistently got the menu to appear if I hit the menu button whilst a tape was playing.

I will add that I have had no trouble with any of the other 6 non-JVC VCRs I have. There is definitely something iffy about JVC video output when a tape isn't playing.

To clarify, when I am playing a tape and hit menu, the tape keeps playing and the menu does not appear

If your TV has composite in and the menu doesn't appear if the VCR is connected directly to it, have your VCR checked by a skilled technician. There is nothing we can do beyond this point.

Would it be as simple as replacing the navigation card if I can find one?

The issue here is lack of frame TBC. The input is unstable.

Would this be beyond what an ES10 would fix? It shows up fine with my other JVCs

ES10 is not a TBC.

It's a DVD recorder with a strong+crippled line TBC, a non-TBC frame sync, and various processing (quality reducing side effects).

ES10/15 type will often also not provide continuity of signal. Because, again, not a frame TBC.

It's a great optional unit for workflows. but it is not (and never has been) any sort of TBC replacement. That's a recent online false notion, past few years, mostly in an attempt to avoid buying an actual frame TBC.

Sometimes ES10/15 works, sometimes not. That was never it's function.