Disappearing Panels on Gnome/Ubuntu

[vodhner at cox.net]

I have encountered a problem where some buttons on my Gnome desktop panels, and finally the panels themselves, have disappeared.  I can get some stuff done from the command line, but I'm pretty crippled ... had to create another account on my box to get a fresh desktop!

I upgraded to Hardy Heron with the idea that it might re-populate the buttons, but no such luck.

I tried diff-ing some of the Gnome-related setup files in my home directory, against those of the newly created account, and did not find anything helpful.

So:

Q1:  How do I create a panel when there are no panels to start from?

Q2:  Where does Gnome put this stuff, so I can tuck away a copy to reload from?

Thanks,

Victor