Zorin Taskbar and Zorin Menu go INACTIVE after screen lock/unlock (layout reverts to stock GNOME)

General Help
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1

System info

  • Zorin OS 18 (GNOME Shell 46, mutter 46.2)
  • Session: X11 (also reproduces on Wayland)
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (Optimus/hybrid, PRIME mode: on-demand), driver 595.84 open kernel module
  • Dual monitor: 2560x1440 external + 1920x1080 built-in

Symptom

Every time I lock the screen (manually, or automatically via suspend), my desktop reverts from my chosen layout to something that looks like stock/default GNOME — no taskbar, no Start-style menu, plain light-ish styling. The only way back has been to either restart GNOME Shell (Alt+F2, r) or fully log out/in. This started with Zorin 18; I didn't have this issue with 17.

I originally suspected suspend, NVIDIA, X11 vs. Wayland, and third-party extension conflicts, but none of that held up under testing:

  • Reproduces on plain lock, with no suspend involved at all.
  • Reproduces identically on Wayland.
  • All relevant gsettings values (theme, icon-theme, color-scheme, enabled-extensions) are byte-identical before and after the bug occurs — nothing is actually being reset at the settings level.
  • Cross-checked enabled-extensions against what's actually installed on disk — no real duplicate/conflicting extensions are running.

What I found

Comparing gnome-extensions info output before and immediately after the bug appears:

Before (working):

zorin-menu@zorinos.com     Enabled: Yes   State: ACTIVE
zorin-taskbar@zorinos.com  Enabled: Yes   State: ACTIVE

Right after locking/unlocking:

zorin-menu@zorinos.com     Enabled: Yes   State: INACTIVE
zorin-taskbar@zorinos.com  Enabled: Yes   State: INACTIVE

Both extensions stay Enabled: Yes in settings; nothing disables them, but gnome-shell silently stops running them (State: INACTIVE) after the lock/unlock cycle.

Checked journalctl -b 0 -S "-2 min" | grep -iE 'zorin-taskbar|zorin-menu|zorin-dash' immediately after the bug and found zero output. No crash, no exception, no error of any kind logged.

Is there a known fix or open issue for this?

EDIT: I also ran sudo apt reinstall gnome-shell-extension-zorin-taskbar zorin-appearance zorin-appearance-layouts-support zorin-appearance-layouts-shell-core and didn't have any effect, the error persisted

2

Do you have installed citrix workspace? It can cause such problems.

3

Welcome to the Forum!

Did You tried the non-open Nvidia Driver?

4

I don't have Citrix Workspace installed. I tried the non-open NVIDIA driver (Driver Version: 595.84), but the error persisted.

5

You could use as Alternative Dash To Panel and ArcMenu to check if it behaves the same with these. These Are Taskbar and Startmenu, too but a bit more customizable.

6

I tried Dash to Panel and ArcMenu, but encountered the same issues

7

Which third-party user gnome extensions do you have installed? Have you tried to disable them?

8

I have the following extensions installed: Caffeine, Media Controls, and AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support, but disabling them didn't work.

9

Hm, maybe the reinstallation of the Zorin desktop can help

sudo apt install --reinstall zorin-os-desktop

Or you could try the reinstallation of the Zorin extensions as shown here (select the extensions in synaptic and then "mark for reinstallation", then click on apply)

10

I tried both suggestions here, but neither of them worked

11

I fixed the issue; here's what I did:

I resolved it with a fairly heavy-handed reset, moving aside locally installed extensions, autostart apps, the shell cache, and the dconf user database, then letting them regenerate:

1. Clear local extensions, autostart apps, and the shell cache

bash

# Disable all locally installed extensions (system extensions like Zorin's will remain)
mv ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions.bak

# Disable any apps configured to launch on startup
mv ~/.config/autostart ~/.config/autostart.bak

# Nuke the GNOME Shell cache
rm -rf ~/.cache/gnome-shell

2. Hard reset the dconf user database

bash

mv ~/.config/dconf/user ~/.config/dconf/user.bak

After logging back in, the taskbar/menu no longer goes inactive after lock/unlock, so the problem is resolved.

EDIT: I also installed my previous extensions and applied my customizations. Everything worked fine.

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Inactive Zorin Taskbar after wake