I lost the bar where there is the applications menu

It is easy to restore the panel:

1. press ALT+F2 and in the run dialog box, type gnome-terminal

Gnome-Terminal

In the terminal

2. gconftool-2 — – shutdown (no space between the dashes and no space between the dash and the word ’shutdown’)

3. rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel

4. pkill gnome-panel – That’s it!

Open Terminal: Ctrl+Shift+T

Execute these three commands:

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

The panels should reappear without logging out.

Sorry the two above are for ubuntu this is for xbuntu ----
Alt-F2, type in xfce4-panel
gconftool – -recursive-unset /apps/panel
(Remember: There should be no spaces between the two dashes before shutdown.)
Then enter the next command:
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
And enter one more command:
pkill gnome-panel
That's it!

Hi :)

You could always make-do without the top panel! Simply right-click on the bottom panel and choose "Add to panel" and then add the "menu bar" or "Main Menu" and also add the clock and stuff. Right click on any and choose "unlock" and then "Move" for a slightly weird way of re-arranging the random way they got dumped onto your panel there :))

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

The disappearance of the Application menu is often caused by the sudden ending of the browser Firefox, e.g. by shutting down a PC while Firefox is running.

There is a way to get ik back:

First close all programs, so you will only see the Desktop.

Simultaniously press the key-combination <Ctrl-Esc> which will open the Applications-menu
An other way to open this menu is to move your mouse-pointer to an empty place on your desktop and press the Right_Mouse_Button.

In this Application-menu, go to >Accesoires
Select (and start) a Terminal.
In this terminal give the command:

 /usr/bin/xfce4-panel &

The menu on top is here again...
(*)
From this menu, start Firefox; when started, close Firefox again.
Wait some moments...

Now shutdown your PC the normal way, and reboot.

If this second time this menu still is gone, then repeat all actions until you are at (*)...
The menu is there, and the terminal-window is still open.
Be sure there is NO program active other than these! Now just power down the PC by disconnecting the power_cord (a hard shut down).
Reboot, log in, and shut down the normal way.

Hopes this solves your problem.
A hint:
always first quit Firefox, then wait a moment, and after that you can shut down the PC.

Keep enjoying xUbuntu!