Missing taskbar on install and reinstall.

[leiftheviking]

I have an HP Pavilion dv8000 laptop with an AMD Turion 64 processor and ATI Graphics. About a month ago I was studying abroad and had been using an install of 8.04 for about a month without any problems to speak of.

I turned on my computer, and logged in, and there was no taskbar. I called a friend who is an IT specialist and runs several distros of Linux and we spent an hour trying to figure it out.

To remedy the problem I had to reinstall XP, I had luckily brought my install disk with me in case something went wrong while I was away from home.

Upon returning home I reinstalled Ubuntu...and on my first login after installing all of the package updates, etc, the taskbar was GONE yet again.

I love using Ubuntu and am reluctantly running Vista on the machine right now. While it's been running very well, I plan on getting a new 320gb HD and some more RAM in the next month or so, so I will be dual booting with Vista and (I hope) Ubuntu.

Please help! Is this a common problem with AMD or HP laptops? Did the updates kill something in GNOME? Thank you for any guidance on this!

[leiftheviking]

Nothing?

[derekroyce]

I have a similar problem.

I don't have taskbar nor can I right click to menus.

Any ideas?

[rhardie]

I have the same problem of no task bar - suddenly and without warning as I'm working on a critical task.

I'm trying to run my business on Linux and today, of all days, when I have alligators hanging off my *** leaving big bite marks I have to hunt down a an answer and trouble shoot my desktop interface.

As much as I love Ubuntu, I'm better off with Windows becuase I'm always having some goofy little ***-biter of a problem that cost me a customer relationship or lost revenue due to fixing stuff instead of focusing on unique, value added effort in my business.

This is a big time and money sink!

[mgolobay]

Strangely enough.... once I ran the full system update my problem of no bars being displayed went away.

Then again, the machine our hardware guys gave me to experiment with is an ancient steam powered thing.

[Nexios]

I have an almost identical laptop as the first poster, the dv8310ca. Anyways, I came home and the taskbar was gone, I have a theory that my roomates who are ditching me packed it up with the rest of their stuff...but a linux related theory may prove more accurate.