I have permanently resolved this issue (for myself) by creating new replacment panels and dragging all old launchers to the new panels and removing the old (and now empty) panels.
I can now logout and back in and everything works as expected. -- gnome panels are empty (show nothing) after login https://launchpad.net/bugs/47602 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
