I start up Ubuntu Mate on my laptop and log in, and when I try launching the start menu (either by pressing the start menu button or via keyboard shortcut), the entire taskbar halts for about fifteen seconds. I can still move around the mouse when this happens, but cannot interact with the taskbar until it returns to normal again.

(Also, I'm sure that it's not called the "start menu" in Ubuntu Mate, sorry!)

I don't run Mate` but a quick google reveals you can try to delete your Mate` settings completely and start with a "fresh" desktop. Mate` stores its settings in dconf so you can't be logged into Mate` when you do this. I would just log out, do a ctrl+alt+F2 to get to another virtual terminal and then do the following:

Back up the dconf database first:

Delete it and start fresh, do this:
Then get back to the main terminal ctrl+alt+F1, or however your distro works, and log in to see if that fixes the issue. If your laptop is fairly low-spec, you can also try turning off "compositing" in the window manager settings.

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Thank you! Your solution worked very well!

Great, glad I could help!

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