GNOME: Bottom task bar is missing/blank after upgrade

Question

I am running kali linux, which has gnome. I just updated with

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

and that completed without incident, only a little while after did I realise that my bottom taskbar was missing(well technically just blank(black)). The one where running programs are displayed as well as the 4 buttons that allow switching between workspaces. I have searched around for the last hour, and tried a few things, such as

gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/panel && killall gnome-panel

and a couple of variations thereof.

Nothing has worked so far. I also tried:

apt-get build-dep gnome-panel

which installed a ton of stuff to my surprise... but still, no fix.

If I type gnome-panel into the terminal I get the message:

Cannot register the panel shell: there is already one running.

So clearly, it's not gone(anyway the top bar with menus and shutdown options etc. is still there), it's just the bottom bar... I also noticed that while I say it's missing, it's technically still there, albeit just a black unresponsive bar across the bottom of the screen. So I guess my real question is, why is it not showing anything? And can anybody please help me out?

Solution 1

It turns out that for some reason the settings for my bottom panel(taskbar) had been altered. To access the menu for the panels(top & bottom bars), I needed to hold Alt and then Right-click. This opened a little menu where I could select Add to panel... which opens another menu of things you can add to the taskbar. What I needed to add was 'Windows List', which solved my problem.

Solution 2

On the latest version of Kali 2.x, I had the same exact issue. Alt + Right Click didn't do anything, but if you do the following it gets out of Kiosk mode

right click

select applications -> settings -> panel

it will say there is no panel running and are you sure you want to start one.. I clicked execute and it stopped running kiosk mode.

Solution 3

For Ubuntu running Gnome 40 you need to toggle the Ubuntu AppIndicators toggle in Extensions.

Solution 4

In case your right click doesn't work (mine didn't on the desktop), do this:

1. Press Alt+F2

2. In the "Application Finder" search box, enter "Panel"

3. Follow what Erik said

Solution 5

This command helped me to get back side toolbar:

apt-get install gnome-core kali-defaults kali-root-login desktop-base

View more solutions

Comments

[Attila]

I had to explicitly enable the "Window List" under Extensions in the gnome-tweaks application.