Ever since the Beta days of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, I had been wondering why certain icons were no longer visible. Most notably were the search engine icon’s from Firefox’s search toolbar and the System menu icons.

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I had assumed it was a design decision due to the artwork changes being done to the icon theme that would be corrected during the final release. Well, the final release is here and the issue is still prevalent. Since it didn’t affect the ability to use the computer, I put off finding an answer.

I had been upgrading some other laptops with fresh installations of Karmic which usually includes some tweaks to the look and feel of the default install. That’s when I noticed in the Appearance Preferences that Show icons in menus was not enabled. Seems Karmic is installed with it defaulted to off. I gave it a click and voilà, the menu icons reappeared to much rejoicing.

You can open the Appearance Preferences by following System > Preferences > Appearance from the main menu. Click on the Interface tab and make sure there is a check mark in Show icons in menus.

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Ta-da! They have returned!

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