Deleted panel now x-tile will not launch

WIth MATE 2.17 x-tile has been working great since day one on this machine but now since deleting the original desktop panel and creating a new one my x-tile window does not open. Opening from the command line and then ^C goes like this:

x-tile
WM = Metacity (Marco)
^CTraceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/x-tile", line 67, in <module>
    gtk.main()
    KeyboardInterrupt

journalctl doesn’t move.

Usually the x-tile icon appears on the panel, if it isn’t there already, and the configuration window opens.