Lost XFCE4 Applications Menu
 

New install of Slack 11, using Xfce 4 version 4.2.3.2.

I've been tweaking minor stuff - cursor focus, taskbar, etc. Suddenly, I'm having trouble with the desktop. Background changes don't take and a right-click on the desktop offers no app menu.

The only substantive thing I did (I think) is to unzip a couple of theme packages in /usr/share/themes. I can't get XFCE to find those, either, so help on that point is also welcome.

Mostly, I just need to get the menu back.

Steps taken:
Removed ~..config/xfce4 and ~.config/xfce4-session directories and reinstalled the XFCE4 package in init level 3. Established a new session and all my customizations were gone, but still no menu and desktop still not accepting changes.

Thanks.

Have you tried this?

Click on the "Settings" Button on the XFCE panel.
This should open the XFCE Settings Manager.
In the Settings manager click the "Decktop Icon", to open "Desktop Settings".
Click on the "Menu" tab. Make sure that "Show Desktop Menu" is ticked.

Hopefully that will work.

There might also be some files in /tmp that need to be deleted (look for files like .xfsm-ICE-xxxx). I would also delete the themes (for now).

EDIT: Seeing as you have also reinstalled XFCE, check if there are any files with a .new extension under /etc/X11/xdg/ and overwrite the existing config file with those ones, if there are any, to revert to the defaults.

This was 100% user error. The fix was to check the box marked "Allow Xfce to manage desktop" in the Desktop settings function. I was all over the settings, but never suspected something like that would be hiding under "Desktop."

Just want to capture the info for the next poor bastard.