Restore Panels In Ubuntu Back To Their Default Settings

I did what you said when i accidentally deleted my bottom panel.

The top panel resets and appears. but the bottom one does not appear.

and one more thing,
the command

gconftool-2 –shutdown

does not work it gives an error message

Run 'gconftool-2 –help' to see a full list of available command line options.

when used as gconftool-2 shutdown

does not give any error message

I use Ubuntu 8.04

This worked fantastically. A million thanks!

thanx! this article saved me a lot of time for my friend,why not to write first command like it should be ?

gconftool-2 –shutdown

oops , i understood<sorry

Thanks alot!! I was puzzled for a couple of days with that one.

thank you so much!! Didn't work the first time, but after several tries, it worked out perfectly.

Thank you so much for this.

Wow, thanks a lot
It works~!

There's no reason to shutdown gconfd with gconftool –shutdown. gconftool is quite capable of pruning the tree while gconfd is running, use

gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel

Killing gconfd is not a very good idea. Most (if not all) gnome apps keep their settings there, and one of them may very well restart gconfd before you get a chance to run your rm command.

hm, I don't care much for the formatting of messages here

it's

gconftool gconftool – -recursive-unset /apps/panel

( dash – no space – dash no space recursive-unset )

Thanks. This helped me a lot.

This command doesn't work for me, I am using Ubuntu 7.10.
What's wrong with my Ubuntu 7.10

FMZ, try this:

In a terminal, run ps -A | grep gnome-panel , if you see it (meaning it's running), run:

alt-f2 gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel && killall gnome-panel

if you don't, run:

alt-f2 gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel && gnome-panel

nick's last post worked wonders… nothing else worked for me.. thanks nick.

it didnt work. no errors, just nothing appeared.

you guys were AH!, but genius AH, but if you want to help, pls dont make some confusions, well anyway thanks a lot guys, ive discarded windows in favor of ubuntu.

Thanks !!! I was so depressed before I found this article.

This method also works under 8.10. Thanks for this as it was much needed here.

Thanks for this tip.
One thing I wish to suggest is you make it clear that this will also reset both the top and bottom panels even if they have no been lost etc. Without explicitly stating this, the following statement, "Both top and bottom panels will appear (if missing) with their default settings" gave me the impression that if a panel is not missing it will not be reset to the default settings. I only wanted to restore my bottom panel (which I deleted some time ago). I did not want to reset my top panel, which I have greatly customised to the way I like it.

Again, thanks for the tip. I am happy I at least go the bottom panel back, and I'll now set about redoing my top panel.

Jonathan

thanks…worked like a gem for my 8.10….

thanks a lot for the tips, saved me from having to do a fresh install of e.p. on my eee (easy peasy is based on 8.10 [intrepid] iirc), the only problem i had is i had to put a space before /apps/panel e.g. gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel and it took me a sec to figure that out.

thanks so much! somehow I deleted my one and only panel and panicked for few minutes.
I thought we *can't* delete it to prevent this accident happened to me !?!
Anyway thanks a bunch.

sweet! thanks for helping out us noobs

YESSSS THANK YOU SO MUCH!.

Thank you so much for this article. I messed up my panels majorly and wanted the default settings back, but didn't know what exactly they were.

Worked for me, thanks.

Thankyou good sir. You saved me a lot of worry and confusion.

Thanks a lot I spent an entire weekend trying to figure this out! Very well written article easy to follow.

tnx

for me it worked with just these 2 lines of code

gconftool – -recursive-unset /apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

I am using Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.2, I press ALT+F2 but nothing happens…….I have read elsewhere on other sites to press ALT+F12 / CRTL+2 / CRTL+12 but none of these will open terminal or "run application".

I am truly stuck here….I can see my icons but have no panels. I can right click my desktop, open my home folder using ATL+home, open my "open directory" using CRTL+L.

Please help me….aaaaahhhhh I love Ubuntu but this is killing me.

@Craig Jacobs

Right Click The Desktop Click Create Launcher

in the command textbox type gnome-terminal

Give it the name Treminal Or Anything You Wish

click ok

Thats it you have a terminal shortcut on your desktop

Worked like wonders

Thanks for this..

I have confirmed this also works under Ubuntu 9.04 (Ibex)

I'm using an install of ubuntu which came with my dell mini 9. the system comes with 2 different ways of viewing the desktop, the classical version, and dells weird simple one. for some reason when doing this it reset the panels to the way they looked in the dell version and I'm not sure how to get it back to my normal settings

I had trouble with ubuntu because I was using my PC with a normal 19´´ screen and then I used my PC in a plasma TV, I changed the screen settings in order to see better resolution (I changed to 1200 x 900, then to 900 x 750 more or less). Then I changed again to the normal 19´´ screen but now I cannot see anything except the initial process when I turn on the PC (it apperas the "Press F12 to boot"…etc), then the screen comes totally invisible so I cannot use the PC anymore.

Can I restore the screen settings with the CD without losing my data?

Thanks!
Paco

Thanks a lot it worked!!!!

Is there something similar to reset the default movie player? I tried going in to system, preferences, preferred applications and clicking the multimedia tab and making sure totem was chosen. But whenever i play something it wont play in totem but in a new tab in my browser. I'm not sure what the heck I did.

Users of these steps will notice a disappearance of both top and bottom panels in Ubuntu while initiating the second step in terminal. Also if they minimize the browser window and terminal, these will seem to disappear. To bring back the browser and terminal, press the escape key while holding the alt key.

Thanks, I had deleted my custom panel on my second desktop while trying to customize it (because there actually was none originally) and couldn't even switch back to the main desktop anymore (I guess there is a shortcut, but I don't know it yet). Now I got both panels back on both desktops, which is actually an improvement from how it originally was ^^'

Right-click your media file, choose "Properties" and there should be an "Open with" tab (or something similar, I'm using the French interface). I would suppose that selecting the desired application there would do the trick (the modification is applied to all files of the same extension, like in Windows if you're familiar with that).

I started using Ubuntu two days ago, so it's the best advice I can offer; good luck ^^

This also works in 9.04 Jaunty.

Wow… thank you! I deleted this while a noob and have been unable to get it back to original! Thanks for the simple tip… I had no problems getting it to work!

bless you. saved my ass

I have 9.04 installed.
I uninstalled Evolution and after the reboot I dont have a taskbar with anything on the desktop – just the icons on the desktop?
I reinstalled evolution but taskbar did not return.
I have tried everything on here but to no avail…
please help

BB

Hi,
I went through this too today.

However . . . .

All those grateful thanks, but I can't see anyone asking how to prevent accidental deletion of panels. Is it possible?

Peter

Thanks… I used it and it worked perfectly…

You should write out a list of helpful terminal commands for download…

I'd download them all…

REallly thank you very much
thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much, thank you very much,

:*

This was a tricky one! After 2 years with Ubuntu, I finally managed to zap the bottom panel. I could recreate it, but not knowing the NAMES of what was originally there I was not a happy camper. Funny, when I 1st used gnome, I didn't like having top & bottom panels…now I wouldn't have it any other way! Thanks so much for posting this tip!

thanks… but it did not work until I changed the
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel

to

rm -rf ~ /.gconf/apps/panel
(I added a space after the tilde and it worked like a charm)

thanks, RJ

dud you are my hero thank you so much

I have the same trouble, it seems that steps above doesn't work on my Jaunty…what's wrong? I've already uninstalled compiz and set Desktop effects to none. And also, I'm getting frustated cuz Alt+F2 and Create Launcher by right click on the desktop couldn't work. Somebody, please help me!

It really helped. Very good and quick solution. Worked for me with Ubuntu 9.10

Thank you.

Working for Ubuntu NR 9.10, thanks

Thanks a million , you're awesome, saved me a reinstall!

Works with Karmic Koala too.

@cworkman: This worked perfect in ubuntu 9.10. Thanks a lot!

tnx. Saved me some work to restore.

Worked like a charm in ubuntu 9.10 although i only had to use 2 commands

thanks for this time-saving post.

Worked in 9.10 Netbook Remix as well, but

gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel

was enough. Thanks a lot, I already fell back to generate xml diffs for the different users to find out what to change.

Works perfect on Ubuntu 9.10 Remix indeed.

Only had to use: gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel

worked first time on Ubuntu 8.10… many thanks for the info

YAY! it works in 9.10 though I did have to figure out the correct order of spaces and dashes..
Thanks a bunch!!

Thank you VERY much. Ubuntu 9.04 (holding out until the bugs are worked out of 9.10). Deleted top panel, was surprised how much returned after doing this.

Thanks! I had added four or five instances of the weather applet, just for fun. The only problem was that half the time I booted up the panel was just blank. Resetting worked.

HOORAY! Worked like a charm, I killed my panel trying to help someone get theirs back (good thing I know some hot keys… and now I will create a few desktop launchers). We're both reset and ready to go back to tinkering!

Ubuntu 9.10 & 9.10 remix here.

Cheers!

@nickrud: hi. im new to this whole ubuntu/linux thingy. and i accidentally deleted my top panel. i tried what you guys said. it didn't work. im wondering if i put it in incorrectly. this is what i put. >>
owner@owner-desktop:~$ gconftool-2 –shutdown
owner@owner-desktop:~$ rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
owner@owner-desktop:~$ pkill gnome-panel
<<<
is that correct?

nevermind i tried it over and over and finally got it right! thnx

Works perfectly, Thanks a ton dude

THX dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you've solved my problem!!!! THX a lot my man! I really REALLY apreciate it!!!

Worked great! Thanks!

Legend! Worked a treat.
Thank you.

It works for me with 9.10 Kermic Koala. Thanks a lot, I was getting mad.

Thanks for this post… By accident, I deleted the top bar and I was going crazy wondering how to restore…

I searched Google and found this post and it worked like a charm… I am using 9.10…

Thank you…

I made the same mistake – on CentOS, 5.4
These instructions work a treat
(allowing for obvious or explicitly stated caveats)

thanks a lot. It worked.