Gnome panels query
 

Twice, I have had minor system problems, system hanging and had to halt from the command line rather than using Gnome log-out. Each time, when I rebooted and logged back in as that user, there was a problem with the main panel. On the first occasion, it disappeared altogether, on the second occasion it appeared, but without the open application icon or the pager applet which it resolutely stopped me adding to the panel. These problems only occured for the one user - the one that was logged on when the crash occurred.

My question is, is it possible to either rebuild the window and panel for a particular user? In the first instance where there was no panel at all, there was no gnome menu and so nothing I could do. In the second even using the menu to create new panels, I still couldn't add all the functions. Perhaps I could have done it with a command line, but I'm a newbie still finding my way around the terminal?

My only solution was to create a new user and give them permissions to access the old user's files - but that seems a bit of a defeat.

I'm running Red Hat 7.2 with Gnome.

You might try deleting the /.gnome/session file for that user. Gnome will then use the default session when that user logs on, with the original panels. I've had similar problems with gnome - it seems to be a little flaky sometimes.

Thanks for that... only question is where do I find the file to delete it?

It's in the user's home directory. It's a dot-file (hidden file, if you prefer), so if you're using a file browser such as nautilus, make sure you check the option to show hidden files. If you're working from the command line, log in as the user who is having problems and from the user's home directory do ls -a to show all files.

Many thanks... it worked. Opened with the panel and I was able to add the pager applet, only thing it doesnt show is the open application panel, but I can live without that!