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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.

Esteban Knöbl
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    I too am experiencing this issue, the install was working perfectly. Today they just suddenly disappeared... – rlam12 Apr 25 '16 at 19:53
  • I'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. – Esteban Knöbl Apr 27 '16 at 01:00
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    Seriously, 16.04 should have never been released with this bug. That's making the release almost unusable for normal users. – sstn May 21 '16 at 09:53

6 Answers6

41

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.

L. D. James
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    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. – xShirase May 15 '16 at 13:36
  • This answer is the one that really solved my problem too. – Leonardo Castro May 25 '16 at 12:21
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    for ubuntu 16.04 using systemd instead of upstart, you should issue command like this restart unity-panel-service. If using initctl restart you may get a upstart error message since 16.04 is not using upstart. – Xianlin Aug 03 '16 at 03:03
  • Thanks ! 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. – Razib Aug 09 '16 at 01:59
  • // , 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 Sep 11 '16 at 19:17
  • // , Also, would you be willing to include a link to how to open a terminal window? – Nathan Basanese Sep 11 '16 at 19:19
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    // , This no longer works. Both restart unity-panel-service and initctl restart unity-panel-service do not work on Ubuntu 16.04: restart: Name "com.ubuntu.Upstart" does not exist. – Nathan Basanese Sep 11 '16 at 19:24
  • @NathanBasanese You can open a terminal by clicking on the Launch Menu button and typing terminal. – L. D. James Sep 11 '16 at 20:18
  • OOh yeahhh,, initctl restart unity-panel-service works. – Ashish Ratan Sep 16 '16 at 05:42
  • It 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? – Vivek Nov 16 '17 at 05:01
  • Doesn't work for 18.04 because the packages containing initctl are only available from the previous release and conflicting with the existing packages. – Aryo Adhi May 12 '18 at 17:33
  • I got initctl: command not found (Ubuntu 18.04) – dremodaris Jul 26 '18 at 10:37
30

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.

rlam12
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4

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.

AlwaysTalkingAboutMyDog
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Axier
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  • // , Did the problem ever come up again? – Nathan Basanese Sep 11 '16 at 19:18
  • THANKS, 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 Oct 10 '18 at 16:56
  • update: this purge won't break gnome or mate, since those are only metapackages. gnome-core & co will stay and keep functioning. – PlasmaBinturong Oct 10 '18 at 17:20
  • last update: reinstalling libreoffice-gtk/gnome or even libreoffice-gtk3 did not solve the problem, but deleting ~/.config/libreoffice did!! – PlasmaBinturong Oct 10 '18 at 17:36
3

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...

Subodh Chalak
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2

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
Fernando Murrieta
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1

Run

sudo apt-get install indicator-appmenu

If this actually installs something, then you likely found the problem. I'm not sure what is the easiest way to actually activate the appmenu, but rebooting did the job for me.

dremodaris
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  • (I had previously uninstalled indicator-appmenu because it disabled TeXmaker's keyboard shortcuts, but that bug seems to be resolved.) – dremodaris Jul 26 '18 at 10:40