Debian Desktop issue

im batting 1000 this week.

the desktop screen is caddywhompus all of a sudden. pc sat idle awhile, appeared to not be responsive, i mashed keyboard buttons, and after a power cycle, the desktop has an invisible mouse cursor and this is how it looks.
i was able to get into the menu area, if i go into background settings and apply to all workstations i think it was, i get the debian background and desktop icons but no menu.

also, tried on another pc, same issue.

Gave up. Thankfully i had cloned the drive before i started and saved my config files.

Sorry i could not help, i am sure it is something wrong with the "desktop explorer", that is the normal file explorer that does the desktop part, had this happen on Mate DE twice, it just requires deleting a hidden folder, but i do not know what folder is that on XFCE.