Blank Applications Display
 

Running Mint-MATE,18.3, 4GB RAM. All of a sudden, in bottom panel,clicking on Menu button, when opens, displays left side(Places and Systedm items), but Applications is totall blank. However, clicking on the Favorites, displays the Favorites. When I Rclick on the Menu button, then Lclick on Edit Menus there is a brief flash on my screen, but nothing else.I have run everything I thought pertinent in Control Panel, and also in CompiWiz, all to no avail.I even did a reboot ,clicking on Recovery, but still same problem. Please let me know how to repair this, short of a clean reinstall, which I plan to do in very near future, when Mint 19 comes out.
I'd appreciate any, and all suggestions. Thank you.

According to man mintmenu, you can restore the mintMenu settings to their default by:

mintmenu reset

Log out and back in afterwards.

It would be worth a go to see if that solves the issue (if it doesn't, I have another potential solution).

Thanks so much for thequick reply(as always). It did NOT work.Same problem.

I would have preferred if my reply had been useful rather than quick. ;)

The next approach is to delete ~/.config/menus/mate-applications.menu, then log out and log in again.

Wow, you are quick to answer, thanks again. I'm assuming you are meaning for me to place in terminal "delete ~/.config/menus/mate-applications.menu" , exactly like I'm showing in quotes?

The Linux file delete command is rm. Also we will make a copy of the original file in case it does not get recreated successfully:

I have done that in a long-winded fashion (a mv could have replaced the cp and rm), and included the directory list commands, in order to show you what's going on.

Then log out and log in again.

For info the tilde character (~) represents your home directory e.g. /home/tosim

Right about now, am feeling like I am a newbie. In the panel, I no longer can even see left side(of menu), nor the Favorites. In fact I had to open terminal from Ctrl/Alt/T. Am attaching screen shot (had to use Alt+F2 to get it) to show you where I must have screwed up in terminal.

Did you log out and log back in again?

If so, it hasn't worked. Let's get it back to how it was before:

Then log out and log back in again.

I have to go out now for an hour or so. If no-one picks up the thread then I'll report in when I get back, including explanations of why some of the commands in the image you posted were incorrect.

I had not logged out and in again, as awaiting your instructions. Will try now, and, hopefully, see you in an hour or so. Again, thanks a million.

Have got it back, "to a fashion". It displays like it was in XFCE,i.e.,very basic-upon Lclicking Menu, popup listing "Accessories, Games, Graphics, etc." shows, and by clicking any of them, menu(for what I clicked), now expands, and displays enclosed items. In other words, no left side showing Terminal,Software Mgr.,etc, and no Favorites. I can settle with this like it is until Mint19 shows up. However, I would prefer what I originally had. Just hate to bother you so much over this.

Update:Using my file mgr, Double Commander, I went to folder "config/menus/mate-applications.menu" deleted it, and also deleted mate-applications.menu mate-applications.menu.bak,
logged out, and restarted.Still, as I described above "to a fashion".
Looking back at the screenshot I took of terminal, I realize some of my mistakes, but please inform me all the ones you found. I think, after cd to home/config/menus,I should have added /mate-applications.menu, and then ran
rm mate-applications.menu
This the new mate-applications.menu info::;
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE Menu
PUBLIC '-//freedesktop//DTD Menu 1.0//EN'
'http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-1.0.dtd'>
<Menu>
<Name>Applications</Name>
<MergeFile type="parent">/etc/xdg/menus/mate-applications.menu</MergeFile>
</Menu>

You're not bothering me at all. I'm more concerned that your menu is not functioning well. If you don't mind bearing with me, let's see if we can resolve this.

Can you please post screenshots of the menu when you left click on it, and also when you expand any of the categories?

I tried to do that earlier but whenever I went to take screenshot, menu closed out. Tried it several times.

Mint MATE's screenshot program mate-screenshot should allow you to enter a time delay before it takes the photo. Set it to grab the whole desktop window, set the delay to 10 seconds, click on Take Screenshot, then open the menu.

Blank Application Display
 

I forgot about the delay, guess because I've been using Shutter for years. ss attached

Thanks. Ok, that isn't great. Let's try to get it back to how it was.

Please post the output from the following sequence of commands (copy each line from the text below by highlighting it and pressing ctrl-c, then go into the Terminal window and press shift-ctrl-v):