Application's menu missing from menu bar
Solution 1
This is a reported bug that is being addressed by the developers.
Bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1532226
Missing on Startup
Running this command in a terminal window will bring back the menus for the current session:
$ initctl restart unity-panel-service
To save time and having to:
- Check first to see if the issue is resolved
- Open a terminal Window
- Run the command
I wrote a short script and added it to my startup apps. The script will do all the above. I'll have three minutes to notice if the problem is fixed of which I can disable the startup script once the bug is fixed.
There's a sound notice to nudge me to check if it has been fixed... then finally the command is automatically run.
The menus will be fixed 4 minutes after each reboot.
Script named resetmenus.sh
:
#!/bin/bash
sleep 180
espeak "Resetting unity-panel-service"
sleep 60
initctl restart unity-panel-service
The script can be added to startup by typing startup applications
in the Unity Launch Search Button.
Disappearing during logged in session
The script above resolves the menu problem that is always missing upon boot. The menu subsequently disappears between boots. When this happens I find the AltCntlT to bring up a terminal and typing unity
as mentioned in the previous answer is ideal for that instance.
Solution 2
Apparently it is a confirmed bug on the release... A fix is being investigated. You can see the bug report here
The temporary solution is to open a terminal with ALT + CONTROL + T and typing unity
. This will cause the UI to reset and fix the problem. You'll need to so this every time you boot and it happens.
It is still unknown why it happens, but it affects about 30% of boots.
Solution 3
I had the same problem, and I did what you explained:
sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-gtk
Thank you very much for the help, of course.
I have uninstalled 2 files (libreoffice-gtk
and libreoffice-gnome
) and then the menu appeared (old version).
But then I tried installing again only libreoffice-gtk:
sudo apt-get install libreoffice-gtk
...and opening the libreoffice, the menu appears correctly (new version).
It may be coincidence, but it worked.
Solution 4
I had a same problem with applications like LibreOffice 5 and terminal and gedit. Menu bar was missing from these applications. It occurred after upgrading Ubuntu to 16.04 LTS from 14.04 LTS... I used following two commands and it worked for me...
dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
setsid unity
Use above two commands and I hope it will work for you also...
Solution 5
It happened to me in an upgrade (15.10 -> 16.04), since I couldn't fix it I created a new user and everything looks fine there.
edit!
With the hurry no longer there, I went back to try recovering that user profile. Eventually I managed to get a terminal for that user (use F2, F3... until you get a -full screen- terminal), then I was able to login as the wounded user and run this commands:
dpkg --configure -a
Optionally, you can use this commands to clean and reconfigure the installed packages:
apt install -f dpkg-reconfigure --force
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Comments
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Esteban Knöbl over 1 year
I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04 and found that menus for many applications do not show on the menu bar, as it is configured in 'Settings > Appearance'. For example: menus for Filezilla, Geary, Libreoffice Writer and Software center do not show. I have not tested every app, but I can tell you that browsers (Chrome, Firefox) do have their menus on the menu bar. In addition, if I change the configuration to show menus "in the window's title bar", they don't show either.
Any clues?
Best regards.
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rlam12 about 8 yearsI too am experiencing this issue, the install was working perfectly. Today they just suddenly disappeared...
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Esteban Knöbl about 8 yearsI'm not sure why, but now I seem to have all my menus back. I recently install MEGA Sync, and had to restart nautilus. So maybe that did the trick, though i'm not really sure if nautilus has anything to do with it.
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sstn almost 8 yearsSeriously, 16.04 should have never been released with this bug. That's making the release almost unusable for normal users.
-
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rlam12 about 8 yearsI'll edit the answer afterwards once I find again the bug report. Got lost on my tab history heh...
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kydronin about 8 yearsThanks for the clarification! I hope that it gets fixed soon.
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Dave about 8 yearsThis brought the menu back but crashed half of the programs I was running (such as Chrome, Atom IDE, Filezilla). This is a pretty serious bug, I'm looking forward to a real solution.
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Apologician about 8 yearsDon't you mean
Alt+Ctrl+T
? -
rlam12 about 8 years@L. you are totally right, just edited.
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xShirase about 8 years
initctl restart unity-panel-service
also works for menus disappearing during current session. Also it doesn't seem to crash open applications,. This should be the accepted answer. -
Anmol Singh Jaggi about 8 yearsWarning: This will kill all the running user-applications !! See the other answer for a better solution.
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SPRBRN about 8 yearsSee LD James solution, which works immediately, although you may have to do this after each boot until the bug is fixed. That should be the accepted answer!
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Leonardo Castro almost 8 yearsThis answer is the one that really solved my problem too.
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Xianlin almost 8 yearsfor ubuntu 16.04 using systemd instead of upstart, you should issue command like this
restart unity-panel-service
. If usinginitctl restart
you may get a upstart error message since 16.04 is not using upstart. -
Razib almost 8 yearsThanks ! it works. I was going to install gnome classic menue. But I love Unity and Ubuntu though there are some bugs. Seems Ubuntu 12.04 was the best one I have ever used.
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cul8er almost 8 yearsthis works to me. on ubuntu 16.04.
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Nathan Basanese over 7 years// , It's too bad about the widely hated
systemd
making boots no longer deterministic... -
Nathan Basanese over 7 years// , Funny how the new
systemd
forced on Ubuntu means that boots sometimes have a problem, and sometimes don't, even for the exact same settings and files. -
Nathan Basanese over 7 years// , Did the problem ever come up again?
-
Nathan Basanese over 7 years// , Also, would you be willing to include a link to how to open a terminal window?
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Nathan Basanese over 7 years// , This no longer works. Both
restart unity-panel-service
andinitctl restart unity-panel-service
do not work on Ubuntu 16.04:restart: Name "com.ubuntu.Upstart" does not exist
. -
Apologician over 7 years@NathanBasanese You can open a terminal by clicking on the Launch Menu button and typing
terminal
. -
Ashish Ratan over 7 yearsOOh yeahhh,,
initctl restart unity-panel-service
works. -
Fernando Murrieta over 7 yearsAdded follow up, it may be of help to fix the broken user-profile.
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Vivek over 6 yearsIt didn't help for me on ubuntu 16.04. Just stopping unity-panel-service brings the top menu and be removed when starting it again. However the side bar and close menu doesn't appear. Any other suggestions?
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Aryo Adhi about 6 yearsDoesn't work for 18.04 because the packages containing
initctl
are only available from the previous release and conflicting with the existing packages. -
dremodaris almost 6 yearsI got
initctl: command not found
(Ubuntu 18.04) -
dremodaris almost 6 years(I had previously uninstalled
indicator-appmenu
because it disabled TeXmaker's keyboard shortcuts, but that bug seems to be resolved.) -
PlasmaBinturong over 5 yearsTHANKS, I had my panel disappearing each time I launched libreoffice too. However, when trying to run the 'apt purge' command, it says that it will also uninstall
gnome* libreoffice-gnome* libreoffice-gtk* ubuntu-mate-desktop*
... Why? I'm afraid this will break everything ^^ -
PlasmaBinturong over 5 yearsupdate: this purge won't break gnome or mate, since those are only metapackages. gnome-core & co will stay and keep functioning.
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PlasmaBinturong over 5 yearslast update: reinstalling libreoffice-gtk/gnome or even libreoffice-gtk3 did not solve the problem, but deleting
~/.config/libreoffice
did!!