gnome-panel runs but neither panel appears

[Eliah Kagan]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

In the Natty i386 24-Mar-2011 daily-live CD environment (natty-desktop-i386.iso, md5sum 2337d865ac77319c082fd4753789c90b) with gnome-panel 1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6, when I click Try Ubuntu and the desktop comes up, neither the top nor the bottom panels appear. However, gnome-panel is running:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ps ax | grep -v grep | grep panel
 4435 ? Ss 0:00 /bin/sh -c gnome-panel
 4437 ? Sl 0:02 gnome-panel
 4471 ? Sl 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-panel/wnck-applet
 4478 ? Sl 0:00 /usr/lib/gnome-panel/notification-area-applet

Here's a screenshot showing the absence of panels (this screenshot shows a different bug being reported, which turned not to likely be related to this problem):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gconf/+bug/741458/+attachment/1935316/+files/desktop-without-panels.png

Windows are able to occupy the parts of the screen where the top and bottom panels would be. But when I kill gnome-panel with SIGTERM, windows are automatically moved upward in the screen. Killing gnome-panel does not cause it to be automatically relaunched. When I relaunch gnome-panel manually from the Terminal, both the top and bottom panels appear and are functional, but I get:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ gnome-panel

** (gnome-panel:4967): WARNING **: Failed to load applet NotificationAreaAppletFactory::NotificationArea:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such interface `org.gnome.panel.applet.AppletFactory' on object at path /org/gnome/panel/applet/NotificationAreaAppletFactory

And the corresponding error message dialog box appears on the screen. I know there is a bug (or bugs) that cause these sorts of errors; perhaps this error is not actually related to whatever problem is preventing gnome-panel from displaying.

This also occurred with the 23-Mar-2011 daily-live. I had not used the last few daily-lives before that, so I don't know at what point this bug was introduced.

I've attached a copy of .xsession-errors, from after I relaunched gnome-panel.

This is in a classic desktop (not Unity), since the machine running the live CD system is a VMware Workstation 7.1.3 build-324285 virtual machine without graphics acceleration enabled. (The host machine, in case that's relevant, runs Maverick amd64.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: gnome-panel 1:2.32.1-0ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-7.38-generic 2.6.38
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-7-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Mar 24 09:35:44 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-panel
GConfNonDefault:
 /apps/panel/general/applet_id_list=[indicator_appmenu_screen0,trashapplet_screen0,workspace_switcher_screen0,window_list_screen0,show_desktop_button_screen0,indicator_applet_screen0,notification_area_screen0]
 /apps/panel/general/object_id_list=[menu_bar_screen0]
 /apps/panel/general/toplevel_id_list=[bottom_panel_screen0,top_panel_screen0]
 /apps/panel/global/disable_lock_screen=true
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha i386 (20110324)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
XsessionErrors:
 (nautilus:4434): Gtk-WARNING **: Change Desktop Background: missing action Change Desktop Background
 (nautilus:4434): Gtk-WARNING **: Ubuntu Documentation: missing action Ubuntu Documentation
 (nautilus:4434): Gtk-WARNING **: Change Desktop Background: missing action Change Desktop Background
 (nautilus:4434): Gtk-WARNING **: Ubuntu Documentation: missing action Ubuntu Documentation
 (nautilus:4434): GConf-CRITICAL **: gconf_value_free: assertion `value != NULL' failed

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

I've been doing more searching, and this bug looks like bug 642877. It also looks a little bit like bug 683873, but the description in bug 683873 seems to indicate that the gnome-panel executable doesn't run at all (or doesn't stay running). There are other bugs where gnome-panel takes up 100% CPU and is only partially (sometimes hardly) functional; but in this bug, gnome-panel does not monopolize the CPU, and no panels (not even a blank panel) appear. Several of the details of this bug, besides the general description, also match those in bug 642877.

Unless I find information to indicate otherwise, I plan to mark this bug as a duplicate of bug 642877 shortly.

[Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure)]

The information at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/natty/beta#Graphics%20and%20display makes me think that this is actually a duplicate of bug 711378 rather than bug 642877. Examining the other duplicates of bug 711378 seems to confirm this. So I'll go ahead and mark this as a duplicate of bug 711378 instead.