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Ubuntu Control Center is gone from Application menu & Desktop. I have Ubuntu 18.04. Please help.

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2 Answers 2

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The suggested links didn't help. I tried to reinstall gnome-control-centre, and make it come up via Terminal, but it appeared empty page. So, once the solution can't be found on the Internet, I have to reinstall Ubuntu. That's proved working.

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Run it using terminal first and look at logs in terminal if nothing wrong happens:

gnome-control-center

Run the next commands to make sure you have only one Gnome control center:

find /usr/share/applications/* -iname *control* | grep center

Output: /usr/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop

find /home/$USER/* -iname *control* | grep center

Here's nothing should be displayed

Open other terminal window and run journalctl -f to watch what will happen during .desktop file opening, editing, saving and closing.

Open your gnome-control-center.desktop file and make sure it looks like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Settings
# Translators: Do NOT translate or transliterate this text (this is an icon file name)!
Icon=org.gnome.Settings
Exec=gnome-control-center
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Settings;
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=GNOME
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Product=gnome-control-center
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Component=shell
X-GNOME-Bugzilla-Version=3.34.1
# Translators: Search terms to find this application. Do NOT translate or localize the semicolons! The list MUST also end with a semicolon!
Keywords=Preferences;Settings;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-control-center-2.0

It could disappear if binary in Exec could not be found. So try to modify it as follows:

Exec=/usr/bin/gnome-control-center

or

Exec=/usr/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/gnome-control-center'

Also, whereis gnome-control-center could help in binary path identifying. Check also that binary owner and rights by:

ls -ailh /usr/bin/ | grep control

Save and close editor's window.

And to reinstall it yo could better use:

sudo apt purge gnome-control-center && sudo apt clean && sido apt update && sudo apt install gnome-control-center

And you could also create new user, login with it and check if for the new user the issue occurs or not.

If your apt system could not locate gnome-control-center package, make sure your repositories list configured correctly.

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  • Gryu, thanks for your answer. I tried to follow the instruction, and got only long Terminal writings, not Command Center.
    – user1041353
    Apr 9, 2020 at 4:38
  • Try to reinstall it with purge
    – Gryu
    Apr 9, 2020 at 4:56
  • Thank you. (To begin with, all that bull happened after one of daily updates.) Now, I tried to apt-get purge. Terminal answered that the stuff didn't exist. I tried to install && reinstall. Terminal answered, "unable to locate package center." So, how do you think I can reinstall the center?
    – user1041353
    Apr 9, 2020 at 11:22