Menu reset to Xfce defaults after 21.3 Virginia upgrade

[mgruber]

I upgraded two Linux Mint XFCE VMs to Virginia.
After the first reboot everything looked as as is.

After a second reboot the menu was suddenly at the top on both VMs.
The quick start icons that used be to the right of the menu button, are now hovering separately above the menu bar.
See the attached screenshot.

It seems like there was a reset to Xfce defaults instead of using the existing Mint settings, as you can see also by the icon variant.
Additionally the icon placement on the desktop was re-arranged as well.
I was able to move the menu bar back to the bottom, but I'm struggling to re-integrate the quick start buttons in the menu bar.

Is this an an already known upgrading bug?
How can I fix this?
And is there probably a way to prevent this from happening? I need to update other desktops as well and it would be great to avoid this from happening.

[linux-rox]

Just tested, upgrading an XFCE 21.2 VM to 21.3. Have booted three times, no problems. So, not a general bug.

Do you have Timeshift snapshots? I know some people think they're silly for VMs, but I've had more occasion to rescue VMs with Timeshift than my regular systems. Anyhoo, if you do, revert one of the systems, upgrade again and see whether it was just a weird glitch. By the way, are your VMs separate installations or is one a clone of the other? Are the other VMs you want to upgrade also XFCE?

If you don't have TS snapshots, based on this Reddit, I'd try apt install --reinstall xfce4-panel.

[mgruber]

They're different VMs for different purposes.
One started at Ulyana (20.0), the other at Uma (20.2). Both were constantly upgraded when newer versions were available.
I assume there's a bug that breaks configurations that were installed "back in the day" and resorts to "restore to XFCE defaults" when that problem occurs.

[linux-rox]

No way to tell what happened from the data available. No harm in speculating, so long as you bear in mind they're just guesses.
The VM I tested was installed as 21.2, by the way, so only one upgrade.

Did you try reinstalling the panel?