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Every time that i try to increase or decrease the luminosity of my screen using the keys shortcuts provided in my notebook's keyboard (acer timeline 4810T), unity freezes and the only thing i can do to recover is restart the computer.

there is a app or a command that i use to recover unity?

thanks.

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  • We may want to try and solve the underlying issue. If the laptop is completely locked up -- cntl+alt+f1 does not work then you are locked up. There was a problem with certain Lenovo computers running Nvidia cards in 11.10. Not sure if that is similar to your issue -- does your computer have an nvidia card?
    – cprofitt
    May 14, 2012 at 15:40
  • Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! This question should instead be filed as a bug report, thanks! Instructions here.
    – Jorge Castro
    May 14, 2012 at 16:28

1 Answer 1

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Recovering Unity Without Restarting

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a virtual console. Log in with your username and password. As you enter your password, you won't see anything change, but that's OK.

You'll get a shell prompt (which ends like $ _). Run this command:

compiz --display :0 --replace

Then press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to go back to the GUI. If that doesn't work, switch back to the first virtual console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and run:

unity --reset

Then switch back to the GUI (Ctrl+Alt+F7).

One of those will probably work. You don't have to log out in the virtual console, but if you want to (for example, so that people can't switch to it when you're logged out or have a locked screen), you can do that by running the command exit in it.

Restarting Safely, If You Have To

If you find you do have to restart your computer, you should avoid hard resets. Instead, you can switch to a virtual console Ctrl+Alt+F1, then reboot with Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

If that doesn't work, you can do something that is nearly as powerful as a hard reboot, but which decreases the risk of data loss and other possible negative outcomes of hard rebooting. Hold down Alt and SysRq and, in order, press R E I S U B. (Hold down Alt and SysRq the whole time, but release each letter key before pressing the next one.) See this page for a simple explanation of what that does, and this Wikipedia article for more detailed information.

Reporting the Bug

Since you've found a bug, I recommend reporting it--this should help get it fixed sooner, plus there might be workarounds you can use to fix it yourself on your computer, which you'd find out by searching for the bug (or by reporting it and finding that your bug is a duplicate of an existing one).

Ubuntu's community documentation explains how to report bugs properly.

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  • Thanks for the tips. I tried to use the command compiz --replace, but the answer i got is: compiz(core) - Fatal: Couldn't open display.
    – Rafael Paim
    May 14, 2012 at 15:50
  • @RafaelPaim I'd thought that compiz --replace would automatically detect the right display when $DISPLAY is undefined, but it seems I was mistaken. I've edited the question to correct the command. (Use compiz --display :0 --replace instead of compiz --replace.)
    – Eliah Kagan
    May 14, 2012 at 15:53

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