# Top panel suddenly blank

**URL:** <https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853>\
**Category:** Budgie Desktop\
**Created:** [June 26, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853 "2020-06-26T12:26:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BFG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@BFG](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/BFG)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2020, 12:26pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/1 "2020-06-26T12:26:39Z")

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Well, almost blank. It has weather and a volume icon.

This is the second time I’ve lost my customisations, so my first question is how can I make a backup?

Re the problem itself, it seems to occur when I was swapping my secondary monitor for a new model. I hot-swapped HDMI and the desktop went completely blank - background image only. No panel or menus

On reboot my top panel was changed to lose my customisations. However my bottom panel and dock (set to left side) were all intact as I had customised them, but top panel is empty.

How can this be made more stable?

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**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/2 "2020-06-26T13:27:23Z")

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> [@BFG](#):
>
> This is the second time I’ve lost my customisations, so my first question is how can I make a backup?

> [@Export Budgie Desktop settings to another session?](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/export-budgie-desktop-settings-to-another-session/3322/4):
>
> Indeed ! I did a dump dconf like this : dconf dump /com/solus-project/ \> /home/other\_user/Bureau/budgie-dconf-dump and then load in the other session with dconf load /com/solus-project/ \< ~/Bureau/budgie-dconf-dump I just had to tweak a bit some applets settings, showtime and pixel-saver if i remind correctly. …which sounds logical since those are not stored in dconf com.solus-project but in org.ubuntubudgie if I understand right. This helped me [Cloud sync all budgie-settings / backup & r…](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/cloud-sync-all-budgie-settings-backup-restore/2296/21)

> [@BFG](#):
>
> How can this be made more stable?

Well you’ve found a bug and that will need to be resolved.

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**Author:** ![BFG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@BFG](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/BFG)\
**Post date:** [June 26, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/3 "2020-06-26T17:23:49Z")

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Thanks, I’ve made a dconf backup.

Re the bug - I’m not a developer.

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**Author:** ![BFG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@BFG](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/BFG)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/4 "2020-07-09T17:08:22Z")

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Just happened again. Very frustrating. All my settings lost. Can’t even log out using GUI.

So what is the process for getting this fixed?

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**Author:** ![androt00](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/androt00/32/2608_2.png) [@androt00](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/androt00)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2020, 5:14pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/5 "2020-07-09T17:14:39Z")

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Today the same happens to me, it was the first time.

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**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/6 "2020-07-09T17:18:26Z")

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The process to getting a fix is to find out how to reproduce the issue.

Without reproducibility there is no chance of a fix.

Right. The workaround I suppose is a simple bash script launched on login. What this would do is dconf dump into a temporary file. Then run a diff between this and your backup.

If it finds a difference throw up a message box asking whether to reload from backup.

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**Author:** ![BFG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@BFG](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/BFG)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/7 "2020-07-10T16:56:09Z")

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> [@fossfreedom](#):
>
> Without reproducibility there is no chance of a fix.

Could you introduce a logging method?

I have a dconf backup script already, so I was able to restore.)

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**Author:** ![fossfreedom](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex035/user_avatar/discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/fossfreedom/32/1405_2.png) [@fossfreedom](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/fossfreedom)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/8 "2020-07-10T17:11:48Z")

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More than happy to look at anything that the community creates and proposes.

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**Author:** ![BFG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@BFG](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/u/BFG)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/top-panel-suddenly-blank/3853/9 "2020-07-10T17:16:43Z")

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I’m a consumer.

I can tell you the engine is broken but I have no capacity to fix it 🙂