the top panel shows the time, battery etc but not the menu, how do i get it to show again? i am using the cupertino layout and i think i have to change it to fix this but i can’t get to control centre or mate tweak since the start menu isn’t there.
Try Alt+F1 for the menu, or Ctrl+Alt+t for the terminal (and type mate-tweak in it). While you’re there, you can probably do ‘mate-panel --replace &’ to restart the panel and see if that helps
+1 for Alt-F1: in the absence of any panel menus it will appear at your mouse cursor.
Did you try to re-add the menu applets?
Right click on the panel and select “Add to Panel”, and then scroll down until you find the menu that you want.