Your applications.menu file (which describes the structure of your menu) belongs to the package gnome-menus. If gnome-menus is updated and the new applications.menu is different to your old one, then Apt will ask you if you want to install the package maintainers version, or keep your existing version. It will also allow you to see the difference. This is true for any file described as a configuration file in the deb package. If you install the package maintainers version of the file, then a backup of your old file is automatically saved (with '-dpkg.old' appended on to the filename).
The problems arise when another package makes changes to a configuration file in a preinst or postinst script. If that application messes the file up, then it is a bug in that particular package. However, the /etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu should never need to be modified by any package - ever! And I'm not aware of any package which actually modifies it. The problem with modifying it to add menu categories, is they will probably get lost during an upgrade of 'gnome- menus', as most people will install the package maintainers version of the file (which will restore the default menu structure). If the applications.menu is modified by any other package, then a bug report should probably be opened against that package, as it doesn't need to modify it. If a package needs to add additional categories to the Applications menu, then it should place a '.menu' file in the /etc/xdg/menus/applications.menu-merged folder. An example of this type of package is Wine, or Crossover Office. Both of these packages add a new category to the Applications menu. They both do this by placing their own '.menu' file in /etc/xdg/menus/applications .menu-merged/ I've had a look through your logs, and I can't find any suspect package that might modify your applications.menu. I'm really not sure what to do from here. -- Applications menu content got erased https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/247811 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
