No menu icon, or any others, or apps in the panel.

[patmower]

 * Cinnamon version (cinnamon --version) latest version
   - Please specify if you are using the daily builds PPA no - at least I don't think so.
     (https://launchpad.net/~linuxmint-daily-build-team/+archive/ubuntu/daily-builds).
 * Distribution - (Mint 17.2, Arch, Fedora 25, etc...) 20.2
 * Graphics hardware *and* driver used generic graphics WITHOUT drivers
 * 32 or 64 bit   64 bit
 * Attach ~/.xsession-errors, or /var/log/syslog

Issue here is a copy of what was in looking glass on my system.

info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Cinnamon.AppSystem.get_default() started in 1 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z loading user theme: /usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark/cinnamon/cinnamon.css info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z added icon directory: /usr/share/themes/Mint-Y-Dark/cinnamon info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z loaded at Sun Nov 21 2021 17:03:19 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time) info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z ExtensionSystem started in 1 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z NaNms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z SearchProviderManager started in 1 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Role locked: tray info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet systray@cinnamon.org in 20 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet show-desktop@cinnamon.org in 10 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet favorites@cinnamon.org in 7 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet removable-drives@cinnamon.org in 4 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet calendar@cinnamon.org in 22 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet printers@cinnamon.org in 16 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet keyboard@cinnamon.org in 12 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Role locked: notifications info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet notifications@cinnamon.org in 11 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet workspace-switcher@cinnamon.org in 6 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet xapp-status@cinnamon.org in 3 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet power@cinnamon.org in 31 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Role locked: panellauncher info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet grouped-window-list@cinnamon.org in 13 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Adding XAppStatusIcon: nm-applet (:1.17/org/x/StatusIcon/Icon) info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet sound@cinnamon.org in 31 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.cinnamon.SettingsDaemon.Power was not provided by any .service files info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Hiding XAppStatusIcon (we have an applet): nm-applet (:1.17/org/x/StatusIcon/Icon) info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Loaded applet network@cinnamon.org in 15 ms error t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z [menu@cinnamon.org]: root is null [menu@cinnamon.org]: Failed to evaluate 'main' function on applet: menu@cinnamon.org/0 error t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z [menu@cinnamon.org]: Applet menu@cinnamon.org: Could not create applet object. [menu@cinnamon.org]: Error importing applet.js from menu@cinnamon.org info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z AppletManager started in 300 ms info t=2021-11-21T17:03:19Z Cinnamon took 418 ms to start

Steps to reproduce

Expected behaviour

Other information

Configuration info, if applicable If this bug report is related to an Applet, Desklet or Extension, please paste (or use a pastebin service) the offending extension's settings, if it has any. You can obtain this by opening its configuration, clicking the 'hamburger' button in the upper-right corner of the window, and selecting "Export to a file". Please be sure to review the contents and remove any personal data it may contain.

Please paste here

The syslog would take hours to read. I DID try the recent files thing. I eliminated those, and attempted a "reboot". No go, it's ok, it boots, I can access EVERYTHING, just nothing showing up in the panel, and all the icons are gone. And I get a message that something crashed. DUH, I know that. thanks if anyone can help, I am at a total loss. 35 years of doing computers, and this comes up!

[mtwebster]

Had you made any changes to the menu applications before this, such as opening the menu editor to move things around)?

Try temporarily removing menu customizations (ctrl-alt-t should still work to open a terminal, or alt-f2):

mv ~/.config/menus/cinnamon-applications.menu ~/.config/menus/cinnamon-applications.menu.bak

Then restart cinnamon.

A more destructive (but thorough) way of accomplishing this would be to open the menu editor and click 'Restore system configuration'.

cinnamon-menu-editor

In either case, restart cinnamon after you do this (alt-f2 -> r -> enter)

[cadadr]

I am getting a similar error if I customise the value of XDG_CONFIG_DIRS by appending or prepending a custom directory. Don't really know the codebase but I did a bit of debugging / looking around and found:

The offending function seems to be in appUtils.js: https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/blob/0b68b96b0b111082a58fd415f18cc939927d0ad1/files/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/menu%40cinnamon.org/appUtils.js#L67-L70 , Cinnamon.AppSystem.get_default().get_tree().get_root_directory() returns null.

Looking at the C source, here: https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/blob/0b68b96b0b111082a58fd415f18cc939927d0ad1/src/cinnamon-app-system.c#L757-L761 is where apps_menu comes from, and here: https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/blob/0b68b96b0b111082a58fd415f18cc939927d0ad1/src/cinnamon-app-system.c#L151 is where its initialised.

I don't know much to conclude anything, but I suppose the additional directory in XDG_CONFIG_DIRS maybe confused gmenu_tree_new.

[cadadr]

Oh, I posted too early, I fixed the error for me by setting the XDG variable as follows in my ~/.profile:

export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS="$MY/xdg:/etc/xdg"

instead of

export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS="$MY/xdg:$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS"

because in the latter case /etc/xdg is left out of the resulting variable, for some reason, and it's set to /etc/xdg/xdg-cinnamon:/home/g/cf/xdg only instead.