SOLVED: I think I didn't do anything wrong, just wrong time wrong place. Xfce 4.16 came then I thought I broke something xD
Don't ask me how I did, long story. Now everything looks weird. My favorites are gone. Isn't there a spare config file?
Better yet, can someone pls send me that file as text, its totally text anyway. I'd incorrect it by hand.
Looks like if you delete / move it and rebooted you'd get a new default one auto - generated. Or delete / move and restart the panel:
https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2410734 (https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2410734)
Or failing that there are some on GitHub from various projects e.g.:
https://github.com/wailord284/Arch-Linux-Installer/blob/6e4bd2ce84445bda6d70e82985ddf8ed184f80c6/configs/xfce4/panel/whiskermenu-1.rc (https://github.com/wailord284/Arch-Linux-Installer/blob/6e4bd2ce84445bda6d70e82985ddf8ed184f80c6/configs/xfce4/panel/whiskermenu-1.rc)
If you back up with fsync or something now and again to another drive then it's less of a problem to recover your config when this kind of thing happens! Still, good practice to redo it no doubt. ;D
Get it from the presets package:
https://gitea.artixlinux.org/artix/desktop-presets/src/branch/master/gtk/skel/.config/xfce4/panel/whiskermenu-1.rc