Application's menu missing from menu bar

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.

Solution 1:

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.

Solution 2:

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.

Solution 3:

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.