[OpenIndiana-discuss] Where is the top menus and tools

[hput]

Setup: Vbox vm running on ubuntu-21.10 zfs
I got the install done but an not seeing the full menus and other
items normally found at the top of the screen.
I've made the first update so things should be up to date.
Did a second update after install build-essential

I've lost the main menu, settings and any other thing that were in the
top of screen menus and tool bars.

On the vbox setting there is a litte check mark at far right of the
user-interface screen that makes the top menu stuff like:

File  Machine  View  Input [etc, etc]

and I have all that.

Its the Mate menus and the time slider network connection and etc that
are missing.

I can see something in going on and has been since I booted it up 30
minutes or so ago.

The screen keeps twitching up and down, just a 1/2 inch or so every 10
seconds or so... but not in any noticably uniform way or timing.

And every so often the `watch' shows up indicating something is busy.

A few times a little blank window about 1.5 x 3.5 or so that has the
word error in its title bar but nothing else... the little white windo
of it is totally blank.  It appears for few seconds the blinks out.

What the heck is going on here?

Are there Mate settings somewhere that I can edit to get some of the
things I normally do with the menus done and hopefully get the menus
back up?