Missing start menu in Linux Mint 20.04. How to return?

Question

linux

Hello! In some incomprehensible way, the start menu in Linux Mint 20.04 Cinnamon disappeared from the panel. Well, how incomprehensible. After I clicked to edit the bottle menu items in CrossOver and removed unnecessary shortcuts from there, that's when it disappeared. Everything worked fine for more than one month and then suddenly this happened. Next to the applet it says "Something went wrong while loading [email protected] Please make sure you are using the latest version and then file a crash report with the developer." Since I'm not the first one who encounters this, I checked the methods that are offered in the answers to a similar question, namely:
1. Deleted the ~/.config/menus/cinnamon-applications.menu file in the home directory - IT DID NOT HELP!
2. Complete cleaning of the ~/.config/menus/ folder - DID NOT HELP!
3. On the panel, clicked "Reset all Cinnamon settings" - DID NOT HELP!

After each procedure, I restarted Cinnamon. I also tried to just roll back the system via TimeShift to a week ago. Naturally, it did not help, since the problem most likely lies in the configs of the home directory.

The system itself, after launch, writes that there is an applet error and asks to look at the log in Looking Glass.

[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/[email protected]/appUtils.js:13:28
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/[email protected]/appUtils.js:85:49
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/[email protected]/applet.js:2469:37
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/[email protected]/applet.js:1275:18
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/[email protected]/applet.js:1237:14
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/[email protected]/applet.js:3132:12
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/appletManager.js:582:25
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/appletManager.js:357:34
[email protected]/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/appletManager.js:95:14
_init/<@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/extension.js:274:32
---------------->
Cjs-Message: 14:56:19.598: JS LOG: [LookingGlass/error] 
: Applet [email protected]: Could not create applet object.
: Error importing applet.js from [email protected]
Cjs-Message: 14:56:19.598: JS LOG: [LookingGlass/trace]

Answer 1

In general, the problem was solved. Now in order.
Cause of the problem? Briefly: Wine.
More: In my case it was CrossOver. The fact is that when changing / deleting / disabling the visibility of SOME Windows shortcuts in the bottle, and specifically in the "Edit Menu" setting of the bottle, the configuration files containing information about the shortcuts in the start menu are updated. One person from a foreign country writes that Wine uses ANSI encoding instead of the UTF-8 we need to build names for shortcuts (and not only), and as a result, it may happen that an unreadable name is entered into the menu configuration. In the people they are also called kryakobryazy. I decided to check the log through Looking Glass and there really was a UTF-8 error when I started the [email protected] applet when reading the file, but it was not written which file. The first file that comes to mind is of course cinnamon-applications.menu located in /home/USER/.config/menus and that's right. There really was a line with quacks in the Menu section. Renamed simply to Menu. The problem with the encoding was solved and the UTF-8 error was no longer displayed in the logs. But she did not solve the main problem of the disappearance of the menu and had to try everything along the way in search of information on the network.
Carried out a whole range of measures. I'll list which ones. After each step, I restarted Cinnamon just in case. I just press CTRL+ALT+Backspace
1. In my home directory, delete the ~/.config/menus/cinnamon-applications.menu file
Judging by the reviews, this helps in 50% of cases.
2. Complete cleaning of the ~/.config/menus/ folder
Will help in 70% of cases
3. Reset Cinnamon settings. Right mouse button on the panel > Troubleshoot > Reset all settings. It will help in 75% of cases.
4. Rename the menus and dconf folders to, for example, menus2 and dconf2 and quickly restart Cinnamon by pressing CTRL+ALT+Backspace. It will help in 80% of cases.
There are some nuances that need to be clarified. After all of the above, it may happen that the start menu will work, but it will not be visible anywhere. This will happen due to the fact that we have reset everything including the start menu icon. The start menu can be located on a panel with a transparent icon and you need to move the cursor over the panel so that you can see it. Also, some have third-party tray applets installed and, as a result, the main system tray is disabled. For the duration of all procedures, keep the system tray enabled.
Now we come to how this problem was solved in my case. The problematic Windows shortcuts in CrossOver that I deleted were not actually deleted and they were the ones that prevented the menu applet from starting. These shortcuts are located in the home directory ~/.local/share/applications/ select and remove shortcuts from there that you wanted to remove through CrossOver.