missing menu bar in open apps

[SteveNorman]

I am using gnome, compiz, emerald, nvidia 188.4 driver,

When I use my gnome desktop, none of my open apps have the menu bar with file, edit, view etc. They do have a title bar, and the closing and minimising symbols.
When I use fluxbox or KDE the menu bars are in place.

I cant seem to find anybody with these problems in my searches. Most searches yield results for the panel menus and not the apps menus.

BTW I suspect its my compiz install, however compiz works fine for everything else, rotating spheres, paper airplanes, flaming screens et al.

If I stop compiz I still have no menu bars in my apps.
this is the command from window decorator

/usr/bin/compiz-decorator

I have tried

compiz --replace
metacity --replace
emerald --replace
reinstalling gnome desktop

all of which give me varying degrees of the same problem. Windows managers are a bit confusing to me still, I prefer fluxbox but like the drag and drop options in gnome for working with sound and graphic devices.

[gettinoriginal]

hmmmmmmmm, strange, do you have compiz-fusion-icon installed ?? That allows you to better control your window decorator and window manager. Once it is installed, it is in Applications > System tools, and when selected will show up in your Notification area of your panel. Right click on it, and make your selections. If that does not work, go to CCSM and check your window decoration settings, see screenshot:
Screenshot-2.png

[SteveNorman]

Been gone for a bit, Thanks for the reply, I dont have the icon installed, I tried and it didnt install properly. I may be missing some libraries. I will probably just get rid of compiz and re-install it. Does anyone know what config files need to be deleted to get back to a fresh installed, pre configured gnome desktop?

[SteveNorman]

the Icon didnt anything

[gettinoriginal]

Ok, try this:
F2 and type

gksu nautilus

you are prompted for your password, the window opens
Then select the -->view -->reset to defaults within the nautilus window.
Close window and open an app to see if it's fixed.

[SteveNorman]

It didnt work. I suspect compiz is to blame. Is there a configuration file for gnome?

[mcduck]

It didnt work. I suspect compiz is to blame. Is there a configuration file for gnome?

I doubt that Compiz has anything to do with this, it's only a window manager and has no control over what happens inside the window. Still, if you want to confirm this, run "metacity --replace" to switch to Gnome's default window manager.

Have you, perhaps, tried (or installed) the mac-like menubar applet (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=241868) or something like that? That's the only way I've ever seen people being able to remove the toolbar from programs..

[SteveNorman]

Ive never messed with the mac menu bar, maybe I need to re-install metacity.

With both emerald and metacity I have no menu bars at all.

[mcduck]

Ive never messed with the mac menu bar, maybe I need to re-install metacity.

With both emerald and metacity I have no menu bars at all.

Nope, window manager still shouldn't have anything to do with what happens inside the window.

Since it works in other desktop environments, it must be something in Gnome. Has it always been like this, and if not, when did the problem occur and what did you do before it?

edit: What happens if you press F10 (the default keyboard shortcut to access menubar)? Have you tried some other GTK theme? Do you have a ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file and if you do, what's in it?

[SteveNorman]

To be honest I dont remember what I did prior to losing them, but I thought I was messing with compiz. I switched back to fluxbox shortly thereafter, and have been using it until this upgrade to 9.04. Now I am having problems mounting things so would like to be able to use gnome and its auto-mounting devilry till I get around to re fstabing everything.

f10 does nothing.

Its definitely gnome, and to clarify its in my applications that are open where the bar should read File, Edit View History etc. My panel menu bar is just fine.