I’m a relative beginner trying to migrate my Pi 5 server to a Mini-PC.
I installed Ubuntu Server (latest stable) but it didn’t have a desktop and, while I do most stuff by command line, they are sometimes still useful so I looked up how to install a desktop, choosing LXDE because that’s what the Pi uses and because it doesn’t install a whole lot of additional stuff. It worked AOK except that half (more than) the taskbar is missing from the screen:
I looked up “LXDE taskbar issue” and found it was a known error…
Apparently, if I remove Desktop Pager from the Panel Applets tab in “Panel Preferences” it will solve the issue however, I am having issues finding where “panel preferences” is… I’ve checked all available GUI apps and can’t find it.
Anyone got an idea where it might be or what I might do if it doesn’t exist?
You’re right, that’s a known bug in LXPanel on Ubuntu 24.04. The missing section of the taskbar usually happens because the “Desktop Pager” applet is crashing or resizing incorrectly.
You can access Panel Preferences by right-clicking on an empty area of the taskbar (not an icon). If you don’t see the option, it’s likely that your panel is locked or overlapping the screen edge. Try this from a terminal:
lxpanelctl config
That should open the same configuration window. If it doesn’t, you can also edit the config directly:
nano ~/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/panels/panel
Then look for the line:
Plugin {
type=desktop pager
}
and delete or comment it out. Save and restart the panel:
lxpanelctl restart
That usually fixes the cutoff issue.
If you’re still missing part of the panel afterward, check your display scaling in Monitor Settings LXDE sometimes inherits fractional scaling values from newer Ubuntu builds. Setting it to 100% and logging out/in may help too.
