Critical: MATE panel instability in Linux Mint 22.2 – disappearing/mixed icons, broken UI

[Funkenzuendung]

Linux Mint 22.2 (MATE) shows severe panel instability:

• panel icons disappear or get visually mixed
• applets overlap or lose state
• panel becomes unreliable during normal use

This is not a cosmetic issue. The panel is the primary UI element
for navigation and application control. When it fails, the desktop
becomes effectively unusable.

Even if the number of affected users is limited, the impact is critical
and acceptance-damaging for a stable desktop distribution.

Observed characteristics:

• occurs after updates or upgrades (not always reproducible)
• seems related to mate-panel state / applets / rendering
• requires panel reset or full rebuild as workaround

Severity: Critical (P1)
Impact: Core UI broken
Expected: Stable, deterministic panel behavior in a stable release

UI instability in a stable release undermines trust in the distribution.
Such issues should not reach end users, regardless of affected user count.

[lukefromdc]

What version of mate-panel is this? I see as of right now that recent versions of Ubuntu (upon which Mint is based) have updated to a mate-panel 1.27 version NOT to 1.28. Odd number versions of MATE like many other projects are considered experimental/development versions and presumed buggy and breakable. During the 1.27 development cycle a PR was merged to allow sticking applets to the center of the panel. It broke previous layouts exactly as described, layouts made using it worked but broken again when this was reverted for the mate-panel 1.28 release due to that very breakage. A 1.26-1.28 update should NOT do this. We cannot fix this here at MATE if it comes from Ubuntu and thus Mint updating to a development version instead of the stable version that came after it.

[Funkenzuendung]

Thank you for your comment and for pointing this out. I have Linux Mint 22.2. Mate has version 1.26.2 and the bar has version 1.27.1. So obviously something is unstable. I will try to replace the bar with the current version 1.28. This may take a little time, as I am only a user and a programming novice and first have to figure out how to do it. This is my first entry on GitHub. I was very disappointed that such errors appear in such a prominent place in the user interface. Thanks again for this comment!

[lukefromdc]

Simplest workaround is to re-make your panel configuration, it will then work. You will need to do this one more time when you do get 1.28 as the offending commit (Add "center-stick" capability applets on the panel) was reverted.