Circa

This game is dead in the sense that you can't just hop in and find multiple servers to play on at any time of the day. JoF is the main one that consistently semi-active, with a handful of others popping up on certain days and times. Most groups schedule when they get on to play together nowadays. If you're not seeing any servers, that's due to the master server being down and you should use OpenJK, TaystJK, or something similar to be able to see servers in the server list. JKA and JK2 activity has always been declining steadily over the years. We saw a big bump with The Force Awakens release but that died off pretty quick, not because the movie was bad but because people come back to get their nostalgia fix and then get bored and move on to other games. Used to happen when the game would go on sale on Steam, there'd be a bump and then die off after a week or two. It's been over 20 years now. The modding scene is still alive and well, we still get plenty of new mods submitted here with many being worked on, but overall people just don't sit and play JKA all day every day anymore. Most of us are in our 30's and 40's now, with limited time to game, and with how many games are out there most people would rather try new ones rather than stick to one. tl;dr - Yes activity is very low but not completely dead, use OpenJK or TaystJK to see servers if you don't see any

Seems like a graphics driver issue of some kind? See if you have updates to them or maybe try rolling them back to a previous version.

We have a couple tutorials on it.

Not compatible in what way? It uses the assets from the Steam version just fine and is what probably 90% of players use. Unless you are referring to the Steam Deck, then you'd be correct. Windows only, sadly.

If you switch weapons does it stay that way? Does it happen if you load the game from the start of the level rather than a checkpoint or manual save?

Very true but you also made it clear at some point you were leaving the community so I figured I'd speak for you in that regard. Good to see you pop in here though.

Hm I haven't heard of this happening. Do you have any other mods that change the menus in any way?