How To Restore The Original Panel And Menu Bar in Ubuntu

New Solution

Note: The old solution no longer worked for me, I found a new solution and posted it here.

Open Terminal: Ctrl+Shift+T

Execute these three commands:

gconftool-2 --shutdown
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

The panels should reappear without logging out.


Old Solution

Note: This no longer works for me, but I leave it here for those who would like to try. After all, this solution saved me once, and it once worked just fine.

Well, I deleted my top panel by accident today. When I create a new one, some of the original items such as wire network connection, PMC volume control, notification area, date and time… are not there any more. Some of them are no where to be found in the items listed for adding new items onto panels. Anyhow, a quick Google search let me to the solution, found here and quoted below.

Open Terminal: Ctrl+Shift+T

Execute these three commands:

gnome-session-remove gnome-panel
gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/panel
gnome-panel &

Then logout and log back in, or restart you X server with CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE , everything should be fine.

Note: During this process, all panels, including the top and bottom, will be deleted and restore to the default settings. So, if you delete the bottom panel, this also restores it.

15 Responses to this post.

  1. [...] recargar la informacion del panel. Y si acaso lo que queremos es volver a la situacion original del panel. Los comandos [...]

    Reply

  2. Posted by Lee on July 23, 2008 at 7:15 am

    Thats great. But what are the keyboard shortcuts to start a terminal, i cant find those anywhere.

    Reply

  3. Posted by ma65p2004 on July 23, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Lee,

    I think the Ctrl+Shift+T is the default keyboard shortcut to open your terminal.

    You can also add terminal on your panel as a quick shortcut like in windows.

    Reply

  4. Posted by Lee on July 29, 2008 at 5:45 am

    Ok, thanks. Next issue.
    I type each command, hitting enter after each command. After the last command I get a blinking, black cursur with no confirmation….I log out and in and still same problem…

    Reply

  5. Posted by ma65p2004 on July 29, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    Lee,

    Thanks for coming back.

    I found another solution.

    In terminal, enter these three commands:

    gconftool-2 --shutdown
    rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
    pkill gnome-panel

    I hope this helps.

    Reply

  6. Posted by j0sh818 on August 7, 2008 at 3:44 am

    hi there! thanks for this info. really helped. but i got one problem though. my network monitor applet didn’t appear in the panel.

    any ideas? thanks again.

    Reply

  7. Posted by ma65p2004 on August 7, 2008 at 3:43 pm

    j0sh818,

    I never have the same problem before. I will search for the solution soon. However, at the mean time, what you can do is put a network monitor on your panel:

    Right-click on the panel => Select “Add to panel…” => select “Network Monitor”

    This might help you for now.

    Reply

  8. Posted by goliar on October 13, 2008 at 8:16 pm

    Excellent! This is what I wanted to know. Worked for me. Thank you!

    Reply

  9. Nice Post…. I was just looking for this and this worked.

    Reply

  10. Posted by kikin on December 16, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    oh man thank you this really help me a lot nice job

    Reply

  11. Posted by Hugo Estrada on January 28, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    You. Are. My. Hero.

    Thanks so much!

    Reply

  12. Posted by ttt on March 11, 2009 at 9:50 am

    what if I cannot run terminal in no possible way. I cannot access top nor bottom menu. I have deleted all the folder in .home I am trying already 2 hours to solve this but nothing works.
    CTRL+ALT+T = NO
    ALT F2 = NO

    Reply

  13. Posted by Noel Murphy on April 19, 2009 at 10:37 pm

    I deleted my bottom panel desktop panel by mistake. I tried a few other suggestions but nothing worked. When I tried yours it worked perfectly. No re-boot or anything needed my panel came back along with the trash can.
    Your just wonderful… thank you very much.

    Posted on June 23, 2008 by Quyen Nguyen
    New Solution
    Open Terminal: Ctrl+Shift+T

    Execute these three commands:

    gconftool-2 –shutdown
    rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
    pkill gnome-panel

    Reply

  14. Posted by Ade Safdani on April 28, 2009 at 11:53 am

    great! it works, many thanks Quyen Nguyen

    Reply

  15. Posted by nikhil on May 23, 2009 at 9:24 am

    thanks a lot
    works like a charm

    Reply

Respond to this post