[SOLVED] Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

majpooper · Post by **majpooper** » Tue Dec 12, 2017 6:59 pm

Just got an email from someone who I installed Cinnamon 18.0 a few months ago on a new Lanovo laptop. I am not there locally so I cannot provide the system details - although I will get them if necessary. Everything has been running fine until today when the icons on the menu became unresponsive. She told me she shut down and rebooted her printer and then deleted the printer icon from the desktop and then had the issue. I really don't see how that could be related but . . . . ????

I tried to search for a related thread but did not find one - any idea?

Post by **karlchen** » Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:14 pm

Hello, majpooper.

I agree, I do not see any relation between deleting a launcher for the printer from the desktop and the unresponsive panel icons, either. But who knows?
You wrote that the lady shut down and rebooted her printer.
Has she also tried logging off from the graphical desktop and logging back in?
Or in case that logoff and login does not change anything, could she shut down the whole machine and start it up again?
Would be what comes up to my mind in the absence of more details about what has happened on her system.

Best regards,
Karl

Cosmo. · Post by **Cosmo.** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 7:34 am

More chance of success would exist, if the user comes here by herself and answers the question. First one would be: What at all does work? Can she open a terminal - via the quick launcher in the panel or with the hotkey ctrl-alt-t?

majpooper · Post by **majpooper** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:31 pm

Cosmo. wrote:More chance of success would exist, if the user comes here by herself and answers the question. First one would be: What at all does work? Can she open a terminal - via the quick launcher in the panel or with the hotkey ctrl-alt-t?

Agree - but she is not going to do that and I am several hours away.

Anyway I called her and told her to reboot the computer - she did not know what that meant - so I told her to shutdown the laptop and turn it on again. That solved the issue.

I have had almost everything imaginable happen with linux - 95% of my own doing - but never have seen this. But as I said the reboot cleared it.

Cosmo. · Post by **Cosmo.** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 4:54 pm

If she did not know, how to reboot a computer, it appears likely, that the system had been running for ages without being shut down. Might be, that there was an update for a critical component (e. g. Cinnamon) and the mix of old version in RAM and new on the drive did not work well together.

majpooper · Post by **majpooper** » Wed Dec 13, 2017 6:08 pm

Yeah - it all started when she emailed me that the wireless printer was not working. I got that sorted out pretty easily but then the icon freeze - I am not sure exactly what she did because, as she says "I don't know what the words mean when it comes to computers."

This is what we run into when we help friends and family, especially older folks who are intimidated by computers. However - the problems are much less severe and the frequency much less once I got her off Windows 7. When she got the new laptop she wanted to stay with LM and asked me to remove Windows 10.

Linux Mint Forums

[SOLVED] Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

[SOLVED] Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

Re: Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

Re: Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

Re: Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.

Re: [SOLVED] Cannot open any apps using the icons on the panel menu.