I edited the desktop - How did I get THIS mess

I made some minor changes to /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group.app.xml

Everything worked through a few reboots. Then one my last power up, I got my the Aspire One screen with my four usual groups (Connect, Work, Fun, Files). But I also had a movable rectangle with a 10 point star with a pop-up hint "New Item. This item has not been configured yet." This new item stays on top of any subsequent screen, including apps like Open Office.
[attachment=0:27xge3pg]AcerOpenScreen1.jpg[/attachment:27xge3pg]
Most importantly, I lost all the status icons at the bottom right of the desktop screen (Power on, Network connection, etc.). I still have Settings and Help towards the bottom right.

Furthermore, when I click on settings and then click on Network center, nothing happens. The other buttons work.

I'm hoping to avoid re-imaging. Can anyone tell me if this is a group.app.xml problem? Some other file? A corrupted non-text file?

Thanks in advance! -Rich

 

I don't know how you did that, but I think this is the original if you need to go back:
http://jerret.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/group-app.xml

 

Re: I edited the desktop - How did I get THIS mess?!

Thanks for your post. I tried using the original group-app.xml. That's obviously not the problem. The "unconfigured rectangle star" is still there, and the status buttons (network, on-off, etc.) are not there.

 

If you go into settings > panel, can you hide it?

I had a similar problem and that looks like it's the xfce4 taskbar panel that's all messed up.

 

right click-settings-panel manager

delete the panels you probably accidentally added.

Took me forever to figure that one out

 

I did the same. I think the file/directory .config/xfce4/panel is messed up. Have regained most items, but not yet the network button.
one clue is
xfce4-panel -a

then I read another thread (suddenly many things broken) viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3405&p=23173&hilit=.config%2Fxfce4#p23173
I renamed ~/.config/xfce4 to ~/.config/xfce4.oud and rebooted.
This restored to the initial for me so I got to redo all tweaks

 

for uoyr network manager try

su -
"password"
mv .gconf .gconf.orig

reboot

and magic it works

 

You don't need to be root to move .config as it's owned by user. But destroying all of .config when really only the .config/xfce4 holds that particular configuration stuff is a bit of overkill.

Cheers.

 

killing nothing in my one! lucky guy i'm!