text: Q:
  
  System Settings icons missing
  
  Is there any way to reset the System Settings Control Panel page?
  The Control Panel was fine, but the for no apparent reason, PRIVACY, BACKGROUND and a host of other icons have vanished...
  My system seems pretty messed up after the upgrade... Shutdown, Reset, and Logout from the menu no longer work either...
  
  However, I can launch the Privacy panel from the terminal:
  activity-log-manager
  
  and it runs... so why is this, and others, now missing from the System Setting Control Panel?
  I have checked and: activity-log-manager-control-center is installed
  Is there a config file I can check, or a setting in Gconf where the list of icons are referenced?
  I have run - in desperation -
  sudo apt-get purge unity*
  sudo apt-get purge ubuntu*
  sudo apt-get autoremove
  
  Run Gconf-cleaner and Janitor
  then re-installed all packages
  Still the same issue....? 
  
  A:
  
  I could not find a solution. In the end I backed up and did a fresh install. All working fine after that.
  
  