Gvim menu bar missing

9 March 2009

I just opened gvim on my Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) box and found there was no menu bar (File, Edit, etc).

After messing with some guioptions and getting nowhere I ran gvim as root (using sudo) and the menu bar was there. The answer came from a forum post by “Marko”:

Delete the file ~/.gnome2/Vim

It will be recreated when you run gvim again. With luck, the menu will be displayed again.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Scott @ 4:04 am

10 Comments »

  1. :set guioptions+=m ” enables menubar
    :set guioptions-=m ” disables menubar

    Comment by Gonçalo Ferreira — 13 May 2009 @ 10:29 pm

  2. The comment above will work if your menu is turned of within Vim.
    The real issue for this post is due to a problem with Gnome trying to dock the menu somewhere you cannot see it.

    Try turning the menu on in Vim. If that doesn’t work and you are using Gnome/Metacity, follow the directions in the post. They are correct.

    Comment by Steve — 6 June 2009 @ 1:09 am

  3. I had the same issue in Karmic with Vim 7.2.245, and the suggested fix ,namely:

    rm ~/.gnome/Vim
    rerun vim

    worked for me. Thanks.

    Comment by Nara — 20 December 2009 @ 8:38 pm

  4. Saved me some hassle, thanks!

    Comment by David T — 14 March 2010 @ 12:09 am

  5. It works,
    But, could someone explain why???
    Thanks

    Comment by Dign — 9 January 2011 @ 2:05 am

  6. Looks like this happens to someone at least once a year. Thanks for this!

    Comment by James Estevez — 3 February 2012 @ 3:24 pm

  7. I have this problem, and the workaround doesn’t work :(
    Using ubuntu 11.04 with the new ui (unity?)

    Comment by Max — 7 February 2012 @ 10:31 am

  8. I had to do both remove the ~/.gnome2/Vim file and also set guioptions=+m

    Comment by Ivan Storck — 14 February 2012 @ 3:56 am

  9. it is NOT
    :set guioptions+=m
    :set guioptions-=m
    like the first comment says but
    :set guioptions=-m
    :set guioptions=+m

    Comment by ert — 21 March 2012 @ 7:10 pm

  10. Hi, Many thnaks for the suggestions. for me the following worked

    rm ~/.gnome2/Vim
    rerun vim

    Comment by Awais — 23 July 2012 @ 9:15 am

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