mintmenu icon disappears from panel

[bits01]

Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela, x64 MATE edition
MATE 1.10
mintmenu 5.6.4

After some recent updates (not sure exactly which) the mintMenu no longer shows up in the panel. I think it's there as I can see a mintMenu.py process running but it's missing its icon. I tried:

mintmenu --reset
mate-panel --reset

but it didn't help.

If I try to add it by hand to the panel, I see it when I search for it but without the icon (see the screenshot linked below).

I also tried creating a fresh user but it has the same problem, so the issue seems to be system wide.

I tried a force re-install of mintupdate and mint-meta-mate and it did not help either.

/var/log/syslog does not show anything interesting.

Here's a screenshot:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/download/file.php?id=26102&mode=view
or
http://i.imgur.com/RR5Pfsl.png

And the thread in the forums:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=206&t=210166

[bits01]

If I run mintmenu by hand, I see this warning:

/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gtk.py:50: RuntimeWarning: You have imported the Gtk 2.0 module. Because Gtk 2.0 was not designed for use with introspection some of the interfaces and API will fail. As such this is not supported by the pygobject development team and we encourage you to port your app to Gtk 3 or greater. PyGTK is the recomended python module to use with Gtk 2.0
warnings.warn(warn_msg, RuntimeWarning)

Not sure whether it's significant or just a warning that can be safely ignored.

[monsta]

Please try mintMenu 5.6.5 from http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/main/m/mintmenu/ - it might fix it.

[bennabiy]

I also had this issue, and 5.6.5 did not fix it. I verified that pre-update, I had a menu, and post update, I lost my menu, but I could not tell you which package broke it.

[bits01]

Unfortunately 5.6.5 doesn't fix it either. I tried again mintmenu --reset && mate-panel --reset, still no luck.
There's a mintmenu.py python process running and I'm pretty sure that the menu is there in the panel it's just the icon that is broken/missing and it probably renders as 1 pixel or something like that.

Or maybe there is something else that's wrong with it as the Super_L key still doesn't bring it up, I'd think that at least the keyboard should work.

Any ideas how to debug this please?

[monsta]

Can you repost the screenshot please? We currently have issues on the server at linuxmint.com... the forum attachment can't be loaded.

Also, are there any related error messages in ~/.xsession-errors?
(the warning posted above can be ignored - it's been there since MATE 1.6 and isn't related to this issue)

[bits01]

I removed .xsession-errors and started a new session. This is what it has:

** Message: Initializing gksu extension...
Initializing caja-open-terminal extension

(mate-panel:26199): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

(mate-panel:26199): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gtk.py:50: RuntimeWarning: You have imported the Gtk 2.0 module. Because Gtk 2.0 was not designed for use with introspection some of the interfaces and API will fail. As such this is not supported by the pygobject development team and we encourage you to port your app to Gtk 3 or greater. PyGTK is the recomended python module to use with Gtk 2.0
warnings.warn(warn_msg, RuntimeWarning)
^[[35;01mwarning: value_int() Failed to convert data[1433908487.17816]:invalid literal for int() with base 10: '1433908487.17816' ^[[0m
"sni-qt/26252" WARN 11:02:04.497 void StatusNotifierItemFactory::connectToSnw() Invalid interface to SNW_SERVICE
^[[31;01merror: Unable to find hp-upgrade --notify on PATH.^[[0m
Window manager warning: Buggy client sent a _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW message with a timestamp of 0 for 0x2400003 (Virtual Ma)
Window manager warning: meta_window_activate called by a pager with a 0 timestamp; the pager needs to be fixed.

** (caja:26219): CRITICAL **: caja_menu_provider_get_background_items: assertion 'CAJA_IS_MENU_PROVIDER (provider)' failed
mintUpdate: no process found

(mintUpdate.py:26414): libglade-WARNING **: unknown attribute `swapped' for .

(mintUpdate.py:26414): libglade-WARNING **: unknown attribute `swapped' for .

(mintUpdate.py:26414): libglade-WARNING **: unknown attribute `swapped' for .

(mintUpdate.py:26414): libglade-WARNING **: unknown attribute `swapped' for .

[bits01]

And here's the screenshot again:
http://i.imgur.com/RR5Pfsl.png

[bennabiy]

I found that the package:
python-xlib 0.14+20091101-1ubuntu3~trusty Interface for Python to the X11 Protocol

is the offending update (level3 update in mintupdate) which should be marked as unsafe. If you can revert to the previous version (0.14+20091101-1ubuntu2)

if you do a:
sudo apt-get install python-xlib=0.14+20091101-1ubuntu2

it should downgrade the package and you just need to log out/in.

[bits01]

Thank you very much. This fixed the problem.
For now I'm holding back the package, until fixed:

sudo apt-mark hold python-xlib
apt-mark showhold

Is someone going to notify those in charge of python-xlib of the breaking changes?

[MichaelTunnell]

@bits01 The following comment is totally off-topic but might be useful. :)

apt hold python-xlib
apt held

https://github.com/linuxmint/mintsystem/blob/master/usr/local/bin/apt

I wrote an article on that as well, http://www.howtogeek.com/234583/simplify-command-line-package-management-with-apt-instead-of-apt-get/ :)

[bits01]

@MichaelTunnell Thanks! I didn't know about it.

[MichaelTunnell]

👍

[monsta]

@clefebvre: can you please take a look at this?

[bits01]

And in the "Add to Panel" dialog as posted in my screenshot, are we supposed to see an icon for mintMenu? Now that I rolled back python-xlib the mintMenu shows up in the mate-panel and it works but in the "Add to Panel" dialog it still doesn't have an icon. Maybe that's normal, just looking for confirmation or maybe it's another bug that it doesn't.

[bits01]

I see that Mint 17.3 Rosa has been released. Does anyone know whether this issue is fixed in 17.3?