To summarize:

I've read the thread, tried everything suggested, and found a fix for the problems resulting from updating to canola2 version 2.0.0-maemo1 [only shows music and pictures in main menu, settings button becomes gears in bottom right hand corner, tuning plugin installation does not change settings options]

Solutions that did not work for me:
I've gathered that different people had different problems, with different possible resolutions. Installing the flikr plugin or others to resolve the problem with python did not work for me, though it did for others. Uninstalling canola2, running the cleaner, and reinstalling from applications manager or the website did not work for me, though it did for others.

Solution that did work for me:
I gathered that some users had a problem with chinook repositories when running diablo. This turned out to be the problem. I removed chinook extras, added diablo extras, ran canola cleaner, and reinstalled by typing "apt-get install canola2" as root, and this finally fixed the problem.

To remove chinook extras, go to applications manager, click the drop down menu "application manager > tools > application catalogue" and remove anything with "chinook" under distribution.

To add diablo extras, click "install" under Latest releases - Diablo Extras at http://repository.maemo.org/

To get root access, install rootsh, open a terminal, and type "root".