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.

thanks buddy

Thank you *so* much.

hi everybody

thanks…it worked perfect for me

thanks a lot …..it works fine ….

Running Ubuntu 9.10. I discovered all the problems where due to not typing it correctly on the terminal. Where you see the asterisk symbol * replace it with a space, and it should work. It did for me! Thanks a lot!

gconftool*–recursive-unset*/apps/panel
rm*-rf*~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill*gnome-panel

Oops. I pasted the version that did not work for me, here is the correct sequence. replace * with a space. two dashes in front of the word recursive.

gconftool*–recursive-unset*/apps/panel
rm*-rf*~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill*gnome-panel

Don't know why the two dashes are replaced by one dash when I post this. So I did not goof. I pasted directly from the Terminal the second time, but It still only shows as one minus sign, when there should be two! Weird??

thanks a lot. this works for karmic as well.

hmm…, one more question. for new user who's new and not familiar to Ubuntu and command line, is there any convenient way to do this in GUI? thank you.

Please correct the topic (two dashes):
gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel

Thanks!

#Hope the two dashes don't disappear as Merlin2007 mentioned above.

Ok, seems something wrong with webpage coding

i have ubuntu 9.10 i did everything here was written but the panel still doesn't apear…what should i do?

I made my panel disappear (auto-hide) behind my other one and now I can't make it re-appear. Any suggestions?

Works. Thanks Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit

It doesn't work for me nothing happens at all when i enter these commands:
gconftool-2 – -shutdown
gconftool – -recursive-unset /apps/panel
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

I have ubuntu 9.10 or kubuntu 9.10

Someone has created a script

Here is the link…

http://www.starryhope.com/linux/ubuntu/2010/restore-the-default-panels-in-ubuntu/

It works! And when you run it, it looks and works like a desktop application.

There is another program that you can install in the Application, Ubuntu Software Center, called Lockdown Editor to prevent your panels from being accidentally changed.

it works!! tnks a lot!

instructor showed me how.
step 1: open up your home.
step 2: in your home click on view, then scroll down and put a check on hidden files.
step 3: find ".kde" folder and delete it.
step 4: log out, then log back in.
step 5: your desktop is set to default again.

Thanx for the help however did not work for me when tried to copy paste and run in a terminal. But the following 3 lines did the job:

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

Cheerz~

Omg thank you so much !!! haha! every day someone is saved by this thread!!

It worked in 10.04.

I love you.

Thanks !!!!!!!!
i love u so much !!!!!

thank you very much for the help…

Thanks a lot for the post.

@Ahsanul: that worked for me!! thank you so much!

Thanks you, it saved me.

thanks, accidentally deleted both panels and couldn't figure out how to get it back, even after rebooting.

Worked for ubuntu 10.04 as well

i am not so sure if i made a huge mistake but.. my whole stuff in my laptop are gone as i used this process…. did i something wrong?

Thank you it works.
This avoids me to become a gnome expert
for this you have my eternal gratitude

Perfect! I love easy fixes!

It still works on Lucid Lynx,

thanx a ton dude

Hi

I tried using:

owner@owner-desktop:~$ gconftool-2 –shutdown
owner@owner-desktop:~$ rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
owner@owner-desktop:~$ pkill gnome-panel

to restore my panel, it worked. BUT.

All my files have gone missing on my desktop, only by looking at my harddrive it seems like all my data is lost.

Is there any way to fix it?

Thank you for this helpful tip.

I've just carelessly delete my only panel in linuxmint isadora and this tip works flawlessly to get my panel back.

Thanks alot!

Thanks man, it fixed one thing but when I select 'Places' from the panel menu, I get an option to copy a CD/DVD, a panel with Select disc to copy (no disc available) then Select a disc to write to (image file) and the cancel option ? any help for a know nowt and thanks again, lost with out it !

I can still get to all my folders only not via Places drop down menu

Also your tip was applied to Ubuntu 10 Lucid Lynx

I just wanted to say it works and thank you very much.
10.04 x64 ubuntu.

You saved my day

When I click online the google screen covers the top and bottom panels so I can't see them. To go off I have to go into file and click quit.

This happened when I tried to make my google screen bigger by going to view and clicking on full screen.

From there I ended up deleting both panels trying to fix that. Thanks to this link I restored both panels but still can't get my internet screen to show both panels while surfing the net. Please help me this is very frustrating.

I found another site that said to go back to view and click on full screen and then hit F11. I tried that prior many times but I figured I would try it again. When I clicked on full screen it brought it down little again. I didn't even get to the F 11 part. Well it worked. The only problem is when I stretch it to make it fit the full screen it comes just a little short on the right side.

I then hit the up arrow at the left upper corner of the screen and then stretch it to fit but when I click off and come back it is back to being short on the right side. Well better that nothing.

Thank you, bro! It's really helpful.

Thank you very much. you saved my day !

Thanks! worked perfectly!

Haha somehow I managed to delete every panel and reset the gui to default with nothing on so I would have been screwed, but I had a firefox window left open so I managed to do a google search to get this. Ty.

it is not working on my computer. it happend to me one time then i did this and some other things and it came back then now 3 days later it came off again. it was there wen i turned the computer off when i turn it back on its gone. i tried doing this so many times and nothing happens. when i try putting a space between ~ and / it says
rm: cannot remove directory `/home/r*****o': Permission denied
r*****o@R*****os:~/Desktop$
and its just waiting 4 me to put a command

HELP
please

ILHN try this link http://www.starryhope.com/linux/ubuntu/2010/restore-the-default-panels-in-ubuntu/

WOW! Works great, thanks!

thanks Huge help, I'm new to linux and this was a huge help

thanks a lot. worked on 10.04 as well. used nickrud's method.

Thanks guys and especially to Merlin2007 for the exact way to type in the commands.thanks a ton!!so glad to see the default panel back.keep up the good work…

you can (highly recommended) put those three commands in a file (ie: vi restoreDesktop) and then run the file with the line below:
. restoreDesktop

Simply futile to try it differently.

BTW, Thanks a lot! It worked for me!

user@portal:~$ cat restorePanel

gconftool –-recursive-unset /apps/panel
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

user@portal:~$

hold on. There is a fundamental error from the latest (in my case 10.04 LTS) version of Ubuntu.
Everytime that I shutdown and power up the PC, the desktop disapears….
That is quite weird!

A temporary solution is to change the file permissions (she my previous post) so that it can be run from the desktop as an application. To do this:
ALT+F2 to run gnome-terminal
chmod 774 restorePanel
Now you can close the terminal and create a launcher on your desktop to point to this file (the actual launcher)

Alternatively, you can embed your "restorePanel" in the script that runs under your user home (short of the equivalent to the old DOS Batch file)
but that is an advanced option.

Try the one above first and if this works, you can rest assure it would work always.

In the mean time, someone would have to go to Ubuntu creators an let them know about this flaw in the latest release of their otherwise wonderful Linux distro.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot…it worked for Ubuntu 10.04 too

amazing… definitely a time saver

I'm using 10.04 and it worked like a charm. Many thanks!

amazing! it work like a charm on 10.04.
Thank you for instruction. Linux newbie

Thanks for the tips guys – but can anyone explain why it is even possible to do something like delete ALL your panels and thus have no way of accessing your programs, files etc? For a lot of people this would be highly confusing I think, since the only way to get the panels appears to be to run terminal commands.
If the UI has an easy way to delete panels, should it not also have an easier way to restore them?

Wonderful~! Thanks a lot for your advice, solved my problem in a very simple way!

It's great ..
Thanks a lot

Thanks a lot… It saved me from one of the crash….

Thanks, worked great on 10.04

Thanks a lot!! this trick works on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) as well.

@dwayne: Thank you, thank you. it works!!

I am somehow just an idiot….I deleted just my bottom panel, when trying this I was able to also delete my top panel….while staring at the blank desktop I remembered someone had posted alt F2 to get terminal to open. I did that and was now staring at my blank desktop with a terminal window….clueless I figured what the heck, let me try some more alt combinations. Maybe I was just lucky but I hit alt F1 and viola I got back top and bottom panels.
Thought I would mention just in case it works for someone else.

worked on ubuntu lucid lynx 10.04, thanks!

thanx to help me

@FCerezo:

I had the same problem after installing the updates for 10.04 LTS.
Once I restart the system all taskbars disappear.
Like you suggested I added theses 2 lines at the bottom of the .bashrc file and it works fine!

rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel

You can open up .bashrc (or .tcshrc etc) in your home directory with an editor and add the above 2 commands in the end of the file.
ALT-F2 and run xterm
vi ~/.bashrc

Also an easier way to do it is to open xterm with ALT-F2 (type xterm in the Run Application window)

and then type the folowing commands:
echo "rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "pkill gnome-panel" >> ~/.bashrc

and then restart the system.

It seems like a temporary solution that it works till the new updates fix the bug.

thanks

thanks a lot! worked a like a charm in 10.04

hey thanks it worked fine…and i am is using 10.4. thanks for this help…
thanks

Thanks for this tutorial on restoring the default panels. I was screwing around with the panels and accidentally deleted the entire top panel and was having a hard time trying to get it back. Your instructions worked great. It only took about a minute to restore the panels using your method.

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 with all the latest updates and your method still works very nicely! Thanks again!

Two years after you posted this advice, it's still helping us. Thanks a million!!!!!

Thank you very much. You guys are really genius. You solved my problem in the simplest way possible.

wow g8 ……….. thx for the information ..

@nickrud: Nickrud's tips worked like a charm on Ubuntu 9.10 for some reason the other commands didn't do it.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion.

thanks.. it's working!
God Bless you all.

Worked like a charm!

Alt F2 (brings up the Run command window)
Type "gnome-terminal" and hit the "Run" button to open the terminal.
$ gconftool-2 –shutdown
$ rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
$ pkill gnome-panel

ever so grateful, was pulling my hair out.
thanks again
JackM

Thanks ever so much for your fix… newbies such as I stand in awe of your kindness and sharing of knowledge, no doubt hard learned.

Thank you kindly,
Skip

What Skip said! Thanks a bunch!

thanks so much. this did it perfectly. I'm a noob and this was a piece of cake. I'm running lucid and it worked great. fantastic commands

Worked! What a relief. Thank you.