Both panels gone.

[Levviathor]

I'm running Ubuntu 8.10. Yesterday, when I booted into Ubuntu I was presented with a blank desktop. Right-clicking did nothing, but Expo and Window Switcher both worked. I was able to get a media player running. I got an error when I tried to open a file, and the min/max/close buttons were spaced apart.

After some reading around, I found that I could open a terminal (couldn't get the run box to open) and type "gnome-panel". This put it back, but it also removed the "alex@alex-laptop...$" prefix, causing it to ignore all further commands. Closing the terminal would also cause the panels to close, and after I reboot I have to turn them on again.

I'm using a Dell I-1525, 4G, Pentium dual-CPU 1.73GHz machine.

[PacSci]

Suggestion: Type "gnome-panel &". You can then close the terminal. However, I don't know how to keep the panel starting up - try creating a '~/.xsession' file and adding 'gnome-panel' to it.

[UbuntuNerd]

try this command it should restore your panels to default:

gconftool-2 --shutdown
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

[andrea000]

Try
ctrl backspace
and see if that restarts it.

[Levviathor]

@PacSci, the panels still close after I closed the terminal. I added the .xsession file (there wasn't one before), as you suggested, and it worked. Sort of.

The panels started automatically, but there were a whole host of other problems. The desktop didn't load (no background image, no icons, and right-clicking didn't do anything), everything had a win9x style look (flat, grey, sharp corners), my notification area didn't load any icons, and the list goes on.

@UbuntuNerd, nothing happened when I entered those >_>

@Andrea, ditto.


I found an interesting error in ~/.xsession-errors: "x-session-manager[5695]: WARNING: Application 'gnome-wm.desktop' failed to register before timeout"

Not sure if this is relevant or not.

[Crowchild]

I am having the same problem. I rebooted my laptop after updating today and haven't been able to get the panels to stay.

I have to open a terminal and run them but as soon as I close the terminal (and leave the root session) it closes the gnome-panel.

If I try running gnome-panel without sudo, it tells me that 'A panel is already running'.

[Crowchild]

Rebooted and it seems to be work after trying UbuntuNerd's fix...!?!

Thanks.

[Levviathor]

This is a bit old, but I felt I should mention that I eventually just nuked my installation and reinstalled Ubuntu.

Unsurprisingly, that fixed it.