Jaunty, desktop/gnome menubar/panel disappeared

[rannday]

After I started up my laptop running Juanty desktop edition, the menu bar which I had customized at the top of my screen disappeared.

Apps still seem to be working through, was able to open up firefox via the terminal.

I don't understand what happened though. Ne other cases of this? Any way to add a menubar w/ a command?

-rann
rannday@bellsouth.net

[fela]

That's funny, the only explanation I can think of is that you accidentally deleted it (though that's quite unlikely!). But you can right click on the bottom panel and choose 'new panel' to create a new one.

[rannday]

I had no bottom panel, deleted it, leaving only the top. So that wasn't an option.

But I did some research, seems there are a few other cases of this. So tried running some terminal commands they recommend for the fix. But they weren't working.

I began thinking, maybe gnome-panel is no longer installed. . which was the case. reinstalled

sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

then ran gnome-panel

gnome-panel

and they came back, but I received this error message, asking me whether or not to delete it. still haven't decided.

The panel encountered a problem while loading "OAFIID:GNOME_FastUserSwitchApplet".

I didn't delete the panel. But last night, right before I went to bed, I partitioned by pen-drive and ran the USB Startup Disk Creator and installed Jaunty desktop edition on it. Don't know if thats pertinent, but its all I did b4 shutdown b4 I restarted it about an hour ago.

Also, know its not the right forum for this, but my drive w/ jaunty on it doesn't seem to be "persistent"? It isn't saving my user data, such as customizing it and apps I install on it b4 shutdown.

[rannday]

So I decided not to delete that, but that caused gnome-panel to stop loading, so forced quit, and gnome-panel stopped working.

started again, deleted that "thing" this time, now received this error, and also gnome-panel stopped working.

Unable to open desktop file evolution-mail.desktop for panel launcher

So I'm going to force-quit again, reinstalled evolution mail, and c if this fixes anything.

[rannday]

installed evolution mail and then ran gnome-panel again, here was the output

/$ gnome-panel
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Initialized Panel Applet Signaler.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 0.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 1.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 2.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 3.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 4.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 5.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 6.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 7.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 8.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 9.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 10.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 11.

(gnome-panel:5567): libglade-WARNING **: Unexpected element <requires-version> inside <glade-interface>.
** (gnome-panel:5567): DEBUG: Adding applet 12.

no clue what to do now. any help would be appreciated.

-rann
rannday@bellsouth.net

[rannday]

whatever the problem was, I've decided to just do a clean install, again.

but check out this script I wrote (jaunty.sh) for a Jaunty update after new install.

Kinda new to Unix/Linux/Unbuntu, but I am lovin' it. Friend taught me how to write simple scripts, such as (jaunty.sh), enjoy!

[fela]

I shouldn't have taken that break from the computer!!! You didn't need to reinstall. I reckon you could have entered in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

That's a package that will automatically install all the packages that come with the Ubuntu desktop when installed.

I don't know what happened to your setup but it sounded like lots of packages had been removed.

Anyway, lesson learned hopefully! I would only reinstall if your system totally breaks (at the system level). And even then it is a last resort. Then again maybe it's cause I love fixing things!

Best of luck with the new 'Buntu installation.

[wordsmyth]

BOTH my desktop panels disappeared on Jaunty - TWICE! BOTH times I've had to re-install, for with no way to access the Terminal via Applications/Accessories on the missing top panel, I've had no other choice. But if it happens again, I'm going back to Windows. What IS going on here, fellows?

[dipaish]

I too had the same problem. I solved it once by running in the safe mode. The second time i installed the ubuntu-desktop (sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop). Trust me whenever a new version of ubuntu comes there are always a lots of problem atleast for the first 3 months and then things start to get fine slowly. I too had many problems with ubuntu 8.10 . I had to install jaunty twice by now. For the first time i upgraded which made my pc very slow, my open office was hanging again and again, sound problem , if log out then it would hang,,,i would get a blank screen etc. I decided to re-install . Hope this is the final time and i dont have to reinstall again until the other version is launched (6 more months left)

[bugritall]

As part of my migration from XP, I disposed of Evolution Mail yesterday and installed Mozilla Thunderbird. I dragged in Thunderbird's Win-XP store and all seemed well until I booted my system this morning, only to discover that both my desktop panels have disappeared.

I'll follow your advice and report back.

EDIT:
I managed to get to the system prompt (after a bit of dib0700 grief caused by my DVB-TV tuner) and I re-installed ubuntu-desktop. All is now well again, except that Evolution is back. However, since Thunderbird still appears to be my default mail client, I suppose I can live with having Evolution lurking around in the background.

I suppose it's a bit like having Internet Explorer lurking around when I'm using Firefox in *******.

EDIT 2:
I was wrong about Thunderbird being my default mail client because Evolution is. This is looking increasingly like a ******* Update farrago.

Anyway, chances are that the only time it might matter is when I respond to a HTML mailto but I still want to make Thunderbird my default mail client. How do I do that, please?