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When I login, nothing happens.

I am presented with my desktop wallpaper.

Blank desktops suck

No Dash, no Launcher, nothing.

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85% accept rate
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Output of /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p please. – RobinJ Oct 1 '11 at 21:24
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Hi Bak. Your laptop has the native Intel video card and an additional nVidia Optimus video card? Did you have installed the proprietary (restricted) nVidia drivers? Please, add this information in your question. – Rafael Oct 22 '11 at 3:47
It may prove useful to also see what's in this file, if anything. cat ~/.config/compiz-1/compizconfig/config – doug Oct 22 '11 at 4:48
Since I cannot comment I am posting this a answer. Kindly move it to comments if possible. You can try to install compiz-settings-manager and configure your settings. I usually get this weired things in unity when I change something in the Compiz settings. – Arun Mozhi Oct 22 '11 at 6:28
I am guessing maybe Nautilus crashed? Does your desktop in the Ubuntu (non 2D) interface always display only the wallpaper? – Wolter Hellmund Nov 9 '11 at 6:01
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11 Answers

up vote 24 down vote accepted

You just need to turn the Unity plugin back on. The problem is this is a pain in the bottom because you've now got no graphical method to do this. So:

  1. Press ControlAltF1 and log in.

  2. Install the jibby you'll need to configure the settings by running this:

    sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

  3. Then run it. The first part tells the terminal which display you want it to load on (otherwise it won't have a clue).

    export DISPLAY=:0
ccsm

  4. Press ControlAltF7 (or ControlAltF8 sometimes) to get back to the graphical display where there should be a CompizConfig Settings Manager screen sitting there.

  5. Find the Unity plugin. Enable it.

  6. Everything should spring into life but if it doesn't, you might have to restart. You can do that by going back to TTY1 and running sudo reboot.

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1  
Well done Mr. Oli. – jrg♦ Nov 7 '11 at 23:36
Thanks Oli. I ruled this out as a possible fix for my system becuase I knew I hadn't disabled it but somehow it did. Props. – Todd Partridge 'Gen2ly' Mar 17 at 14:54
This appeared for me after having installed Unity Rotate Plugin, and then upgrading from 11.10 to 12.04 (which turned off the rotate plugin, and didn't enable unity). Also, I had to enable unity twice with a reboot in between. After that - great success! – Jon Skarpeteig Apr 27 at 8:24
I can't install compiz. I keep getting this error: 'the following packages have unmet dependencies compizconfig' with a bunch of other text! – Mohamad May 1 at 20:53
@Mohamad probably best to start a new question - and you'll need to include that text. – Oli♦ May 2 at 9:16
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up vote 13 down vote

Press Ctrl-Alt-T for a terminal and run ccsm, then re-enable your 'Unity' plugin.

You also may then need to run a unity --reset.

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This answer does the trick. – Fitoschido Oct 16 '11 at 14:56
Thanks. This did the trick. No idea how I made it disappear in the first place. – Finglas Nov 6 '11 at 21:55
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up vote 9 down vote

You might want to run the compizconfig-settings-manager Install compizconfig-settings-manager package and make sure that the Unity plugin is checked.

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After screwing around with Natty and ccsm, I was able to get it working again. – jrg♦ Dec 31 '10 at 14:14
4  
Yes this works great. It'd be nice if someone could explain how to install / start ccsm without a desktop :) – Stefano Palazzo♦ Oct 30 '11 at 21:12
What kind of session are you running? Check under the gear in the upper right corner of the password window on the login screen. I spent hours finding out I was in a "Recovery Console" once. – waltinator Nov 6 '11 at 23:29
In my case, the Unity plugin is checked. Still doesn't work upon boot. – Stefan Lasiewski Nov 20 '11 at 23:13
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up vote 4 down vote

Developers are always fixing bugs, so an alternative is to wait, and to follow progress on bug fixing (subscribe to Unity development in Launchpad).

  1. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2.

  2. Log in.

  3. Run sudo shutdown -r now in a terminal.

  4. At the login screen after your system restarts, choose Unity 2D (for now) by right-clicking the sprocket icon.

  5. Wait for a fix for Unity 3D/Ubuntu 11.10 (e.g. a week).

  6. Update your system to get the fix; in a terminal type sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade.

UPDATE: I was able to resolve this by using ccsm, from Unity 2D login.

(This is adapted from this Ubuntu Forums post.)

  1. At the login screen, select Unity 2D and login.

  2. Install ccsm (CompizConfig Settings Manager) by running in a terminal: sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-extra.

  3. Start ccsm, and select the category Desktop. Enable the Ubuntu Unity Plugin; if asked to resolve conflicts, select the MIDDLE button for all conflicts. Close ccsm when done.

  4. Restart, select Unity (3D) and login.

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up vote 3 down vote

I have had exactly the same issue.

If you have Compiz Config Settings Manager installed it may be that the Unity Desktop Plugin is disabled.

Log in to a Unity 2D desktop and check that it is enabled in CCSM like this,

CCSM

Unity Shell will not load in the default desktop if the tickbox is not checked and you will get the session in your picture.

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I have solved my problem thanks to you. I have just remembered that the problem occurred after installation of Compiz Manager but I could not guess that. I don't know what would I do without askubuntu and all of you guys. – Bakhtiyor Oct 22 '11 at 8:55
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up vote 3 down vote

The easiest way to do this is to press Ctrl-Alt-T to get a terminal and then issue:

rm -rf .compiz-1

and your unity session will come back before your eyes..

This technique is better than re-launching ccsm, because you can get into OP's error condition without even accidentally de-selecting unity in ccsm; you can get it simply by accidentally pressing the "preferences" button in ccsm.

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up vote 2 down vote

I had this exact same problem for the past 6 or so hours and tried a million different things I think. What did the trick was reinstalling compiz-settings-manager. Then reenabling the Ubuntu Unity wall plugin and resolving the conflicts.

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up vote 2 down vote

Simply running 

unity --reset

fixed it for me.

I previously tried removing and re-installing ccsm, but that changed nothing for me.

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While Unity is much better than it was in 11.04 (I can actually use it now without it breaking in normal use), it's horribly fragile with ccsm. I find that generally that with almost any changes in ccsm, the first two or so cause Unity to restart and the third change I make in ccsm crashes Unity completely and I need to restart the computer (as I can't log out - generally it stops the keyboard working too)... and once I've managed to break it so that it did exactly this, then unity --reset did fix it for me. Pity I've then got to change assorted things in ccsm again... makes it take ages. – Chris Morgan Oct 15 '11 at 3:05
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up vote 2 down vote

I had this problem too. I solved it with deleting the content of the ~/.config/compiz-1/compizconfig file and relog.

rm -rf ~/.config/compiz-1/compizconfig/*
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+1, everything loaded right after i did this – Casey Oct 31 '11 at 19:43
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up vote 1 down vote

You REALLY don't want to run ccsm. It's like walking around with a loaded shotgun pointed at parts of your body that you really would prefer not to get shot off.

Crashing when pressing the 'preferences' in ccsm is a known bug.

To recover:

control-alt-t (to open a terminal window):

rm -rf .compiz-1

Your session should come back, fixed.

Finally:

sudo apt-get purge compizconfig-settings-manager

And never ever run ccsm again. Seriously.

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3  
I think it's a little harsh to say that ccsm should never be run. After all, at the very least that's where all of Unity's configuration options are. I will agree though that ccsm can cause very bad reactions with Unity under certain conditions, but these are just bugs that need to be ironed out. – WarriorIng64 Nov 9 '11 at 7:12
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I presented factual information on how to fix the original issue. It might be mixed in with some opinion about ccsm, but you shouldn't be down-voting me because you disagree with my opinion. After all, ccsm is how the original poster got in trouble in the first place. Additionally, the plan is not to improve ccsm, but to migrate out the most important configuration settings from it and surface them in somewhere safer, such as gnome-control-panel. So really -- you should not be using ccsm, and as a community, we need to stop recommending it. – achiang Nov 9 '11 at 14:30
First, I did not downvote your answer; somebody else did, and I don't appreciate the accusation. Second, I would tend to think the underlying problems are not with ccsm but with Compiz itself - moving those options out to another interface will still not solve the underlying problem in the long run unless the bugs are properly fixed, and they will only be fixed by testing and bug reporting by users so developers know where problems are. Third, the first portion of your answer is fine, but you shouldn't advise the user to remove software when it is not necessary for a fix. – WarriorIng64 Nov 10 '11 at 5:36
Ok, I'm new to this site and assumed an incorrect linkage between a negative comment and a downvote. I apologize for that. I stand by my other original points -- ccsm is dangerous and as experts, we should not be recommending that anyone use it. It's the wrong long term answer. – achiang Nov 10 '11 at 5:46
I appreciate and accept your apology; it's easy to assume that one comment and one downvote means they're by the same user, but votes are anonymous and one must be careful not to jump to conclusions. I still respectfully disagree with your opinion on advanced tools like ccsm, but this comment thread is not the best place to discuss this. I have opened a new question on Meta where we can talk this general issue over as a community. You're welcome to participate. – WarriorIng64 Nov 10 '11 at 6:20
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up vote 0 down vote

I had the same problem, but the update this morning seems to have fixed that. Still Unity-2D worked all the time.

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