Side panel in Xubuntu disappeared

Question

Was sitting here working on the computer when the power restarted for some reason. When my computer rebooted and I signed back in my top and side panel are missing. All the rest of my desktop seems to be there. I opened a terminal and entered the command:

xfce4-panel

I got the message:

xfce4-panel: there is already and instance running

yet neither of my panels are showing up. I have tried logging out and logging back in several times and still no panel. I'm running Xubuntu 12.04 64-bit.

Solution 1

I had this problem after I changed graphics drivers. My solution was:

1. Press Alt+F2.

2. Type xfce4-panel --preferences and press Return. This brings up the panel preferences.

3. Under Output, make sure that it is selected to show up on the right monitor. It might be selected to show up on an external video output or some other non-existing monitor.

4. Repeat this for all affected panels by selecting them from the pull-down at the top of the panel preferences window.

Solution 2

I had the same problem. I tried the answer from Saurav, but that did not work for me.

My panel would never show when I logged in. So I followed the instructions from Xubuntu Panels.

These are the steps that I got it going:

1. Press Alt+F2.

2. Type xfce4-panel and press Return. This brings up the Xcfe panel.

3. Log out of Xfce and tick the Save session for future logins button.

Worked for me.

Solution 3

xfce4-panel --restart and a 10 sec wait worked for me.

Solution 4

Re-installing xfce4-panel would solve this issue

Follow these steps to re-install and re-configure xfce4-panel. Open terminal and execute these commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -f install --reinstall xfce4-panel

_{Be sure that you don't remove other packages while installing. Check the installation message carefully.}

Once installed execute following command to re-configure xfce:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure $(sudo dpkg -l | grep xfce | awk '{print $2}' | tr '\n' ' ')
sudo update-initramfs -u

Then reboot your system.

View more solutions

Comments

[Saurav Kumar]

Try these once.. sudo dpkg-reconfigure xfce4-panel If it doesn't help then try to re-install it by: sudo apt-get -f install --reinstall xfce4-panel. Logoff and log-in and see what happens.. Reply..

[Saurav Kumar]

What do you mean by your desktop? Run these commands once and restart your system. 1.sudo dpkg-reconfigure $(sudo dpkg -l | grep xfce | awk '{print $2}' | tr '\n' ' ') 2. sudo update-initramfs -u

[Jason Smith]

All the folders, files, icons on my desktop are gone. All that is showing is the default screen from the login session.

[Saurav Kumar]

are you able to open the terminal using ctrl+alt+t. If still not then you can switch to tty1 CLI mode any time by pressing ctrl+alt+F1. Then you can execute commands that I've mentioned. You can also logout any time you want by : sudo pkill -u smith if smith is your user name.. Reply..

[Jason Smith]

Saurav: your second set of commands seem to have done the trick. Everything seems to be working now except for one file that was open when the outage happened and now when I try to go back into it is says it is opened by an unknown user and I cannot access the file.

[Saurav Kumar]

I'm not able to configure for which file you are talking about.. If that is not that much important then you can ignore it. Hope later it would be fixed by itself after one or two restarts. ;) Since your issued is solved I would like to post it as answer and want from you to mark it as solved. It would help others to get through their problems and also comments can be easily deleted later.. After my answer just review it once and edit if left something..

[Mario Radomanana]

Worked for me. My panel disappeared after I removed second monitor.

[Csaba Toth]

Wow, the initiramfs is needed?