Disappearing panels/menus in Xubuntu

It happens to me as well, see:

http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2130

I remember having problem in Dapper with the XFCE desktop.

I found a thread about this at:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1603.msg9441

I extracted a possible explanation:

=== extracted information from forum ======
By default, XFce saves your settings when you exit it. If the taskbar was gone when you exited XFce, it won't appear the next time you start XFce. So doing Alt-F2 and typing xfce4-panel will make the XFce panel reappear and if it's there when you exit, it'll be there the next time you start. At least that's how it's supposed to work.

When I have XFce set up the way I like, I make a backup copy of my home directory's /.config directory. Then if something weird happens, I can exit XFce and from a command prompt without X running, I delete my current /.config directory and copy the backup directory to /.config. Do startx or startxfce4 and everything should look like it was.

If you're going to make a backup directory of /.config, do it often because you'll doubtless have changes in that directory that you don't want to lose. Backups are wonderful things!
====== end of citation ============

Can you update/upgrade your system and verify if you still have the problem with a recent version (Edgy) or update version of your install ?

Otherwise, can you try the mentioned workaround and report back any results here ?

Thanks for helping in making Xubuntu better!

I seem to have this issue with feisty. It seems at random intervals xfce panel dies. Usually I just logout and back in again and its good but usually is missing an icon. In all the cases I can remember it is only one icon but it is not always the same one.

joe, does it happen with the very latest packages in feisty?

When I booted xubuntu feisty livecd (the official version) it came up with no panel at all.

This is on my tired old 1999 latitude laptop. Took 15 minutes to boot :-O 256 MB RAM

I looked thru /var/log/* for odd things about "panel" and saw nothing.

It worked to run xfce4-panel& from a terminal window.

I did notice some odd cdrom drive errors during boot - I might be lucky it booted at all...
But other things seem fine.

E.g. in /var/log/dmesg:

[ 460.964250] hdc: media error (bad sector): status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[ 460.964282] hdc: media error (bad sector): error=0x30 { LastFailedSense=0x03 }
[ 460.964300] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 460.964709] hdc: error code: 0x70 sense_key: 0x03 asc: 0x15 ascq: 0x00
[ 460.964790] end_request: I/O error, dev hdc, sector 387868
[ 460.964810] Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 96967
[ 465.272659] SQUASHFS error: sb_bread failed reading block 0x2eba7
[ 465.272729] SQUASHFS error: Unable to read fragment cache block [bae500c]
[ 465.272799] SQUASHFS error: Unable to read page, block bae500c, size 4e32
[ 546.837951] SQUASHFS error: sb_bread failed reading block 0x2eb94
[ 546.838036] SQUASHFS error: Unable to read fragment cache block [bae1b6f]
[ 546.838110] SQUASHFS error: Unable to read page, block bae1b6f, size 349d

Hi, this is a 'me too'.

Just burnt and tested the official xubuntu feisty livecd. No xfce4-panel was visible, desktop icons were there however. Manually launching, `xfce4-panel` worked and the panel came up as expected.

This occured on a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop.

I'm marking this as confirmed.

Ive had it happen on Gnome panels also, I saw some article that said it could reach the point of no repair easy enough just by meddling with putting aps on and editing for whatever reason just breaks. it had a really usefull script that was supposed to be the cure all for the bug, but wouldn't you know it I cant find it once I need it. I eventually got so peaved I just reinstalled. Last night I tried aptitude remove-installed over my xubuntu desktop. I used "purge" to do it. it didnt do any good. I dont know anything about anything i am only 5 weeks linux. but i hope maybe I said something that helps someone else. Ubuntu Rocks !

Aztec13 you should open a new bug report as your problem happens with GNOME and not with XFCE.

I have had the same problem as neal and pinkwerks, in booting from the fiesty live cd the xfce panel fails to launch. I created a separate bug report, as this is different from the disappearing panel issue, although i have also experienced a disappearing applications menu. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-panel/+bug/138902

I had this problem recently on Xubuntu Feisty, fully updated - some time in early Oct 07, before the Gutsy upgrade. In fact the problem happened on Feisty and persisted across the upgrade

I ran xf4ce-panel and got the panels back, but I have no menus at all - Applications menu just show Settings and About XFCE, and Quit. Is there some easy way to regenerate or recover the original menus for installed packages?

Can I also suggest that the Xubuntu developers put the above suggestion of backing up .config in a FAQ? As a newbie to XFCE I had no idea this was the config file, and also didn't realise config was so important to having a usable UI.

I can confirm this bug for 6.06 too: xfce4-panel disappears, and sometimes looses some icons, or the xfce-menu entry.
It doesn't seem to depend on an user-interaction. Sometimes I go to sleep and the panel vanished overnight without any interaction.

It started in summer 2007, and is appearing more often since then.

I use mostly the fglrx-driver for my graphics card, and I'm unsure whether it happens with the radeon driver too.

This is not video driver related - I get it on a laptop with different graphics hardware.

I have a machine with old hardware in it, so I use xubuntu. This is not my machine, and the person using it reported this issue. Her panel would sometimes just lose plugins on it, and other times the panel would disappear completely. It's 7.10 gutsy, and her video card is some crappy onboard VIA.

I noticed people said they were playing freecell when this happened - which made me curious, because she said freecell was being played on the machine, and the game was left running overnight. I'm not saying the game running overnight was the issue, but maybe freecell is?

Removing assignment from me, I had asked a question I guess and this was still (wrongly) assigned to me.

This is quite a serious bug for users who are new to Linux - the menus just disappear and recovering from it is quite hard (lots of Googling to find a solution). It makes it very hard to recommend Xubuntu for new users, as it's not acceptable for them to be left without menus like this - at least without some workaround that backs up their ~/.config directory daily so they can recover, which is only feasible if they have someone with Linux skills installing Xubuntu for them.

I only saw this issue after upgrading from Gutsy to Hardy 8.04.

Panels will either disappear entirely, or remain on-screen with absolutely no functionality. When they break in this manor, the panels are no more than images.

I suspect this occurs when a system is heavily loaded, but that is only supposition.

My fix has been to create a desktop icon tied to the panels command. This works, but it is a real hack.

This happened to me when I was trying to help a friend to move the panel from top to bellow, right click-> move and when I drag appear come square in the middle of the screen for an instant after that all dissapear, only the icons on the desktop. That happened on Xubuntu 8.04 completely updated at 16/09/2008 on a Compaq desktop with 128M of RAM.

You may consider giving more information about this bug using the method described in http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2130#c3

My experience with Xubuntu and Kubuntu is that they both are full of bugs. It appears that most of the developer energy is going into Ubuntu asd it seems to work right most all the time.

Not so the spin offs.

My ideea was to use Xubuntu on my older desktop that has 2 HDs and win98se on the first. Xubuntu is touted to be the solution for older hardware. Not so in my case, still bogs down my machine AMD 450 CPU 384mb RAM. And numerous exasperating bugs are there too.

My solution was to load Puppy Linux and run it from the CD.

My two cents
bill

The problem still exists; I regulary keep losing my power governor plugin in Xfce and have to re-add it at that point - I think I've seen terminal output ONCE where it told me that it killed one of the plugins because there wasn't enough memory (this is true, I only have 512 MB RAM and a very small swap and it gets filled up quickly).

Seems like the solution would be to make all Xfce plugins unkillable or auto-restart if they did so they never disappear until the panel itself is unloaded.

2008/11/9 DaVince <email address hidden>:
> The problem still exists; I regulary keep losing my power governor
> plugin in Xfce and have to re-add it at that point - I think I've seen
> terminal output ONCE where it told me that it killed one of the plugins
> because there wasn't enough memory (this is true, I only have 512 MB RAM
> and a very small swap and it gets filled up quickly).

Here the same program dies with no reason, since I have 2GiB of RAM
and never get fully used (lots of buffers, of course). Looks more like
a segfault than any other thing. Now I'm using "CPU Frequency Monitor"
and so far it doesn't crash for nothing.
--
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Pessoas não mudam, apenas mascaram sua real identidade.
People don't change, only mask their real identity.
Люди не меняются, только маскируют свою реальную идентичность.

I had this problem on my Dell Mini 9 after an abberent power off.

The suggestion by:
 Fabián Rodríguez on 2007-01-17

Fixed everything for me.

> As I don't know how to fix it, I must launch "xfce4-panel" every time I start Xubuntu.

Have you ever tried to check the checkbox to save the last session in the shut down window?

This should permanently restore the bars (until the bug occurs again). Please try and report here.

If it works Bug 403604 is a duplicate of this bug.

this also happens in Jaunty xubuntu (pure one, and up to date 2009-Oct-09)

With Jaunty, a lot less applets "die" now, but the power governor still keeps disappearing occasionally (mostly after CPU-intensive tasks).

>Have you ever tried to check the checkbox to save the last session in the shut down window?

What window, that window has vanished as well (a serious problem that does not go away with erasing the configuration and try again, if I only knew the name of that binary...), and I have a computer where the window frames disapeared, and windows keep locked to the upper portion of the screen (taskbar). I have another with the nagging xfce4-panel need to manually lauch problem, but that is of no concern.

xubuntu amd-64, latest kernel

Happy linux computing (well, some bugs around, but, still, I can't live without it...)

Antonio

Antonio J. de Oliveira: You are seeing a different bug than this one. Have you filed a new bug report? If not, please do so. There have been many changes in Xubuntu and Xfce, but if all the windows are locked to the upper right, that is not this issue.

Thanks for helping improve Xubuntu.

thanks, Charlie

upper left, to be more precise, and the shut-down window vanishing may be another issue...If you still think I need to file a new one, or a pair of new ones in, just let me know, I don't like to flood the joint with new bugs without a real need...

Cheers

Antonio, please do file a separate bug report for the issue with the windows opening in one place. This bug report is about the panels themselves disappearing when trying to do things like click the shutdown button in the panel. The rest of the desktop works as expected.

Thanks.

The last time this occurred on one of my customer systems (Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope + XFCE) I had to delete the session to get it back. I then added an entry for the panel in the sessions startup programs (Settings > Session and Startup > Application Autostart) so it would always load even when the primary loading mechanism fails.

I'm not sure how related this is, but I was having a problem with my panel disappearing on after logging in on Xubuntu 9.10 + XFCE 4.6.1. I added 'exec startxfce4' to my ~/.xinitrc and haven't had the problem since.

thank you, i'll try that one

--- En date de : Dim 21.2.10, Justin Jacobs <email address hidden> a écrit :

De: Justin Jacobs <email address hidden>
Objet: [Bug 53897] Re: Disappearing panels/menus in Xubuntu
À: <email address hidden>
Date: Dimanche 21 février 2010, 23h35

I'm not sure how related this is, but I was having a problem with my
panel disappearing on after logging in on Xubuntu 9.10 + XFCE 4.6.1. I
added 'exec startxfce4' to my ~/.xinitrc and haven't had the problem
since.

--
Disappearing panels/menus in Xubuntu
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/53897
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of a duplicate bug.

Status in Xfce panel: Confirmed
Status in “xfce4-panel” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed

Bug description:
Binary package hint: xfce4-panel

A lot of times the panels of Xubuntu Dapper disappeare:
I use to repair clicking Settings manager-->Panel, but now the button is completely  blocked .

Launching "xfce4-panel" the panels  back just loosing a lot of plugins
(menù, mount device, volume, sreenshot...)

As I don't know how to fix it, I must launch "xfce4-panel" every time I start Xubuntu.

P.S.: The problems about disappearing menu, or panel, happened to me many times. This time it occurred after a Skype block. I'm not able to fix

TO RESTORE PANELS:
Please take a look at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XubuntuPanels for help getting the panels back.

To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/xfce4-panel/+bug/53897/+subscribe

If the panels doesn't show up when you start Ubuntu 9.10 press: alt-F2 and type xfce4-panel, and click on run that should fix the problem of the missing panels

We do a some xubuntu installs and the panel disappearing is a big problem. It happens in jaunty, and karmic. I'm hoping it's fixed in lucid. Fine, I know how to restart the menu but it's a fundamental problem for end users that the menu has gone, and rebooting doesn't fix it. If they cant run anything but a terminal, its a critical bug.

Thank you very much for your E-mail but I already switched to Ubuntu looking for a more stable OS

> Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:58:51 +0000
> From: <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 53897] Re: Disappearing panels/menus in Xubuntu
>
> We do a some xubuntu installs and the panel disappearing is a big
> problem. It happens in jaunty, and karmic. I'm hoping it's fixed in
> lucid. Fine, I know how to restart the menu but it's a fundamental
> problem for end users that the menu has gone, and rebooting doesn't fix
> it. If they cant run anything but a terminal, its a critical bug.
>
> --
> Disappearing panels/menus in Xubuntu
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/53897
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Xfce panel: Confirmed
> Status in “xfce4-panel” package in Ubuntu: Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: xfce4-panel
>
> A lot of times the panels of Xubuntu Dapper disappeare:
> I use to repair clicking Settings manager-->Panel, but now the button is completely blocked .
>
> Launching "xfce4-panel" the panels back just loosing a lot of plugins
> (menù, mount device, volume, sreenshot...)
>
> As I don't know how to fix it, I must launch "xfce4-panel" every time I start Xubuntu.
>
> P.S.: The problems about disappearing menu, or panel, happened to me many times. This time it occurred after a Skype block. I'm not able to fix
>
>
> TO RESTORE PANELS:
> Please take a look at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XubuntuPanels for help getting the panels back.
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/xfce4-panel/+bug/53897/+subscribe

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Just a heads up that this seems to still be an issue in Ubuntu 10.04 (Xfce 4.6.1). I'm running an AMD Athalon 4 Processor with 250 MB of memory and the panel disappeared after clicking the quit icon. Re-launching the panel manually and shutting down (to save the settings) fixed the problem for me for now.

Hello
I was sending 10gb(700 music files) thrue skype from sender xubuntu to
reciever xubuntu
half sended ok
chrome was open and vlc was playing radio
mouse placement started lagging then stopped mouse moving then again
moving then stopped then mobing then stoped moving and vlc closed and
chrome close the onlytab open and showed 3 error panels with option to
restart and also from panel some items lost
as i can remember they were Applications, Places and Keyboard and also
maybe volume.
in reciever skype showed sender has canceled sending but in sender
showing connecting to send
restarted sender computer
sender skype still show connecting reciever not recieving these files
but new ones is recieving
maybe but about skype also but this bug is about xfce panel so
heres LS ls from /.config/xfce4/panel http://pastebin.com/800Y195F
witch shows that lost items are there but why then they not showing in
panel?
then i in alt+f2 killall -v xfce4-panel && xfce4-panel &
that killed panels but didnt showed them back then i in alt+f2
xfce4-panel and it came back but still without lost items
then i added applications places and keyboard and now theres +3 more
files dublicated heres LS in that folder again
http://pastebin.com/FUt2RmKg
also im adding all these files

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Theres a bug 585366 witch started as this one bug but didnt froze completly till the end and going to tty6 (and becouse of cpu overload couldnt do even login) and coming back while freezing icons started to dissapear but on killall overloading programm they came back.

only question what kind of overload happened there with many ristrettos? ram or cpu overload? couse cpu at that overload was 99-100% but ram was 789mb/1gb and swap was about 50mb/1gb

I am still having this issue in Xubuntu 10.04 (32 Bit) installed on a Dell Studio 15 (64 Bit).
Is there a fix? I tried the work-arounds floating on the internet, like starting xfce4-panel in the terminal, saving the session and logging in again, etc etc. Whatever I do, the panel disappears as soon as I close the Terminal, and doesn't even run with xfce4-panel in 'alt+f2'.

I also have this bug. My experience, I hope that help fix this bug:

In the bottom panel preferences, if I choose "always group tasks" the panel crash (flickering then disappeared) frequently with floating point exception. But if I choose "never group task" (in .config/xfce4/panel/tasklist-2.rc grouping=0) the panels seems stable.

xubuntu 10.04, x86_64
xfce4-panel-4.6.3-1ubuntu2

I'm also seeing this bug, currently using Xubuntu 10.10.

I can't launch xfce4-panel at all, either from Alt-f2 or from the terminal. The panel just flashes a couple of times as if it's trying to run, before it fails. Running it in the terminal returns a floating point exception.

I haven't tried messing with /.config yet, but I'll give that a go when I get home tonight.

In the meantime, I'm not able to connect to wireless networks using nm-applet, as I only access it from the panel. (Unless anyone can suggest some way to connect without the panel?)

Just an update to say that following Fabián's advice (in post #2, 2007-01-17) about the /.config file worked perfectly, and the panels are up and running again.

If I can find some way to reproduce the panels' disappearance I'll post the details.

Just confirming my experience of what ZN wrote in post #42.
Yesterday I set my task-list to "always group", and this morning the panels wouldn't load ("floating point exception").
Seeing ZN's post, I then edited my ~/.config/xfce4/panel/tasklist-2.rc file to set "grouping=1", and now running xfce4-panel works without error.

This bug was fixed in the package xfce4-panel - 4.7.5-0ubuntu1

---------------
xfce4-panel (4.7.5-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * Upload to natty (pkg-xfce svn r4611).

xfce4-panel (4.7.5-1) UNRELEASED; urgency=low

  [ Lionel Le Folgoc ]
  * New upstream development release.
  * debian/control:
    - refreshed (b-)deps for this new major release
    - add myself to Uploaders
    - bump Standards-Version to 3.9.1.
  * debian/NEWS: dropped, unneeded.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.shlibs: refreshed, bump to (>= 4.7.2).
  * debian/xfce4-panel.lintian-overrides: refreshed, new lib name.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.preinst: added, handles removal of old conffiles.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.postinst: explicitly set -e.
  * debian/*.install: refreshed.
  * debian/rules:
    - call dpkg-buildflags
    - dropped rc files mangling as they don't exist anymore
    - updated removal of *.{l,}a files.
  * debian/xfce4-panel.{preinst,postinst,prerm}: use dpkg-maintscript-helper
    to remove pre-xfconf config files.
  * Bugs fixed by 4.7.x/4.8.x series:
    - rgba support lp: #586012
    - disappearing menus lp: #53897
    - xrandr support lp: #176174, Closes: #432914
    - Fails to reap children, creating zombies lp: #420187
    - DND of desktop-files on the panel to create new launchers Closes: #480380

  [ Yves-Alexis Perez ]
  * New upstream development release
  * debian/xfce4-panel.install:
    - install wrapper and migrate tools in xfce4-panel package
    - update plugins paths
  * debian/rules:
    - update path when removing .a/.la files for plugins.
    - add hardening flags to {C,LD}FLAGS
  * debian/control:
    - add build-dep on hardening-includes
 -- Lionel Le Folgoc <email address hidden> Sat, 04 Dec 2010 15:45:53 +0100

I HAVE THE SOLUTION

From my point of view,

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT TWO DIFFERENT BUGS

1) panel disappears and it can be restored
         (alt+f2, xfce-panel, enter - then reboot saving preferences)

2) panel disappears and it CAN'T BE restored

This second problem is quite annoying
I solved it out by reinstalling from the synaptic pack manager anything that had to do with the panel (by searching with the tool), and then using the solving process 1) after the reinstallation.
I'm not in CS, i don't know what i've done but i have my panel back. Hope it works for you too

Hi, not sure if this helps but, by default, some .desktop files have the value NoDisplay set to "true" and therefore will not appear in the XFCE menu. This happens with wine (for instance), causing the "Other" sub-menu to disappear randomly. This may be the cause of some of the menu problems stated here (I have no idea how to solve the crashing panel stuff).

To correct this, you can set the value manually for each .desktop file you want to appear in the menu, or use a script to set all NoDisplay values to "false" automatically (which will probably result in unwanted and/or duplicated menu items, which you will have to edit or remove by hand).

I chose the latter (which incidentally did result in unwanted and duplicated items, but I simply removed the .desktop files associated to them, they were less than the hidden items and less of a hassle to deal with).
Here is the script, which must be run as root. It works for Fedora, not sure if Ubuntu stores XFCE menu files in the same directory though.

#!/bin/bash
cd /usr/share/applications
ls|grep desktop |
while read file
do
   sed s/"NoDisplay=true"/NoDisplay=false/ $file > temp_$file
        mv temp_$file $file
done

My relative has this issue on Xubuntu LTS (boot never finished so he rebooted the machine, after the boot, the panels were gone).

> * Bugs fixed by 4.7.x/4.8.x series:
> - rgba support lp: #586012
> - disappearing menus lp: #53897

HOW the disappearing menus are fixed in the new release?

Gnome for example re-starts critical desktop services automatically (if they've e.g. been OOM-killed on a machine with low RAM). Xubuntu LTS never restores anything if it happens to crash.

I am running Xubuntu 11.10.0 with Xfce 4.8 in a Medion MD41300.

My lower panel is not displaying, but when I right click places where the icons should be appearing, they start the programs as if they were there. I have notice also that some applications as Terminal Emulator are not appearing completely to me. They are cut in half, and even despairing almost completely, when I try to move them to the lower part of my screen. When I log out, I can see that the lower part of my screen is displaying a more colorfully picture than the upper part, which has become opaque.

I have found a solution to the problem just by changing the resolution of my screen display from 1024x768 (60Hz) and back again. This solution although doesn´t persist after loging off or restarting.

I hope someone can help me finding a solution to this very annoying problem. As you probably have noticed I have just arrived at Linux after long years using Windows, so please be very pedagogic in your explanations. ;-)

Bug Remains in Xfce 4.10 LTSP Clients

In our Xfce 4.10 thin clients, running on Ubuntu 12.04LTS LTSP server, it is the panels (top panel 'panel 1' and launch dock 'panel 2') which are often missing when the desktop appears, but usually only when there are other Xfce client(s) already logged-in. The first Xfce client to login (no other clients logged-in) rarely, if ever, has missing panels.

Alt-F2 > xfce4-panel restored the panels.
Saving the session (when panels displayed) at logout, did not ensure they were displayed at the next login.

The solution that works for us, is to run the panel plugin as an autostart application.
Settings > Autostart (or Alt-F2 > xfce4-session-settings) to Session and Startup > Application Autostart tab > Add (+) > Name: Panel, Desc: Xfce Panel, Cmd: xfce4-panel.

Also, on the General tab > Logout, we do:-
> Auto save session > Chk (to help ensure that desktop configs persist)
> Prompt on logout > UNchk (only confusing for user)

Our system was installed as Ubuntu 12.04LTS LTSP server. We then installed xubuntu-desktop to provide Xfce 4.10 as a more configurable desktop than Unity 2D for users. We have Xfce as the default client session in lts.conf (LDM_SESSION=/usr/bin/xfce4-session).