Missing date & time from top panel of Unity Desktop - Ubuntu 14.04

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 an my machine and since the last upgrade from 13.10 to 14.04 the date&time is missing in the top panel of Unity. This machine was originally installed with Ubuntu 12.10. I upgraded it from 12.10→13.04, from 13.04→13.10 and last week from 13.10→14.04.

I tried every solution found in this question: Missing date & time from top panel of Unity Desktop. But nothing of all this works :-(

I tried the following things:

• reinstalling indicator-datetime
• sudo apt-get remove --purge indicator-datetime and install it again
• sudo dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata
• sudo killall unity-panel-service

and of course log out/log in again and so on...

Where can I find log files for the indicator or where could help me otherwise with this problem?

Trying to debug:

$ locate indicator-datetime-service
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-service
$ /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-service
Indicator-Datetime-Message: indicator-datetime exiting; failed/lost bus ownership

Answer 1

Try reseting its configuration

dconf reset -f /com/canonical/indicator/datetime/ 

If it didn't show up try kill it, it should restart

pkill -f datetime

---

For similar cases, better to explain how you may get it:

1. Check if it is running, if yes then possibly a configuration problem

   $ ps ax | grep -i indicator-datetime
    2863 ?        Ssl    0:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-service
    4043 pts/0    S+     0:00 grep -i indicator-datetime
   

2. Check for where is its configuration. Look for /etc/ or dconf in /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/. List package files using:

   $ dpkg -L indicator-datetime
   [...]
   /etc/xdg/autostart/indicator-datetime.desktop
   /usr
   /usr/share
   /usr/share/glib-2.0
   /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas
   /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/com.canonical.indicator.datetime.gschema.xml
   [...]
   

3. Locate its dconf path:

   $ grep path /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/com.canonical.indicator.datetime.gschema.xml
       <schema id="com.canonical.indicator.datetime" path="/com/canonical/indicator/datetime/" gettext-domain="indicator-datetime">
   

Answer 2

I had exactly the same problem, which that some Language Support libraries are missing.

If you go to:

Settings → Language Support

The system will automatically update the regional formats and the time and date will be back after you log out and in.

Answer 3

This worked with me when I faced the same problem:

killall unity-panel-service

without 'sudo' by the way.

Answer 4

Just kill the indicator-datetime-service process. (This process will get started automatically)

For ex:

$ ps ax | grep -i indicator-datetime
2863 ?        Ssl    0:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-service
4043 pts/0    S+     0:00 grep -i indicator-datetime

kill -9 <pid-of-indicator-datetime-service>
kill -9 2863

Answer 5

Under System Settings, open Time & Date. Choose the Clock tab to the right of the Time & Date tab. Check Show a clock in the menu bar.

Under In the clock, show, select Weekday, Date and Month, Year or whichever of those you want.

Answer 6

Removing the indicator-datetime doesn't remove configuration files and settings under Clock will be grayed out. Doing sudo apt-get purge indicator-datetime; sudo apt-get install indicator-datetime; kill -9 -1; will surely work.

Answer 7

i have been trying to fix my time and language icon missing on the panel. i tried many commands but no use but i finally found myself

click alt+right mouse on the panel

click add to panel

double click on indicator applet complete
your missing icons could be recovered, i had successed by this methode

Answer 8

I am using Ubuntu 16.04 and was facing the same issue. I tried all above-mentioned solution but still facing the same problem. I resolved the problem by deleting file "libxm2.so.2" file from the location "/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2". First, check if the same file exists at multiple locations on your system. If yes then delete all except from "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxml2.so.2" Warning: Please backup before deleting this file to avoid any other system issue.