Jaunty applications menu won't open

**Paresh** · May 22nd, 2009

Have a look in the ~/.config/menus/ for previous copies of applications.menu and compare then to see what's changed. if you have anything, you could try renaming one of them as applications.menu and see if that makes things better.

I have had a quick look and found this link:

The suggested 'worst case' solution is to delete ~/.config/menus/applications.menu and ~/.config/menus/setting.menu
to reset the entire menu.

This should then re-create the standard menus and then you can configure to taste with the main menu app.

Hope it works

**dskyracer** · May 22nd, 2009

This is where my ignorance of the command line interface is hampering my abilities to even open the files you mention. I tried opening them by clicking on them only to get a message telling my I don't have permission to open such files.. I feel like such a newb because I should readily be able to open these files using sudo or some other way with root authority. Forgive me please for my lack of understanding or knowledge in the CLI. Obviously I need to study these things deeper. I've been running Ubuntu for over a year now and love it's stability, secure features, and ease of use. However when problems like these arise it surely pays to have a better understanding of the terminal's power and usefulness. I need more practice or time on it, there is no doubt about that.

Thanks for the link and also your help Paresh. I believe it's just a matter of time for me to be able to overcome this issue, especially when people like you in the community come forward with the help and assistance that I hope I can return someday to others who would benefit from my input.

**dskyracer** · May 22nd, 2009

Looking into my system files using nautilus shows me that the /.config folder has zero items in it. I have no idea if this is even normal. Other folders show a question mark for items. It's all amazing if not mysterious to newbs like me..

One possible solution I considered was building a live disc of Ubuntu 9.04 and using that to possibly compare files or copy them out of the system or root in the live disc and then to paste them later into my current seemingly crippled system to restore editing menus.

Of course all this takes time.. and when we have lives to lead outside of the computer it can take a lot of time. I'm ok with that. Time is irrelevant in many ways, Sometimes I think it's something we created to drive us insane or stress us out. Thanks for your time in considering this problem.

**Paresh** · May 23rd, 2009

I haven't had time to get an answer for you, but I'm looking here to find out how the menu's work (I'm learning too

)

**mc4man** · May 23rd, 2009

Open up a terminal like you did to run gedit or go
Alt+F2, in the run box popup enter gnome-terminal -> run and you'll get a terminal

Then use this command

Code:

mv ~/.config/menus/applications.menu ~/.config/menus/applications.menu.bak

Alternately go Places -> home folder -> and under the view tab enable 'show hidden files'
Then browse to .config/menus and delete the applications.menu file

**dskyracer** · May 27th, 2009

I just did what Mc5man advised to do with the terminal copying and pasting this command into the terminal

mv ~/.config/menus/applications.menu ~/.config/menus/applications.menu.bak

and Vwella! I have my apps menu back in place.. Amazing!!!My main menu icon works again in the preferences choices too. Many thanks to Mc5man and Parish for taking the time to give me aid.. I had faith the Ubuntu community would come through for me and it did. You guys and gals are the best! Now I need to learn how to tag this solved and give Mc5man an official thanks

**windyrij** · July 21st, 2009

Originally Posted by Paresh

Have a look in the ~/.config/menus/ for previous copies of applications.menu and compare then to see what's changed. if you have anything, you could try renaming one of them as applications.menu and see if that makes things better.

I have had a quick look and found this link:

The suggested 'worst case' solution is to delete ~/.config/menus/applications.menu and ~/.config/menus/setting.menu
to reset the entire menu.

This should then re-create the standard menus and then you can configure to taste with the main menu app.

Hope it works

---------------------
Hardy Heron:
I had exactly the same problem, don't know what I did, but the applications menu and Sytem|Prefernces|Main menu had disappeared..

I followed the worst case solution suggested above, and the applications menus and the menu editor in ~|Preferences returned.

I hope this helps someone else.

windyrij