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Possible Duplicate:
Dash search gives no result

When I open my dash in unity (Ubuntu 11.10 upgraded from 11.04), it looks completely fine. Once I start typing though, all entries vanish and the dash is completely empty. It worked fine yesterday. Any ideas how to fix that? Can't think of anything, I changed.

Here are some screens: fine dash until typing than broken dash as soon as I start typing

Edit: Of course I tried this to no effect:

 sudo apt-get purge unity && sudo apt-get install unity
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Related: askubuntu.com/q/93893/18612 – WarriorIng64 Jan 20 '12 at 14:11
Possibly same question asked in askubuntu.com/questions/69456/… check there – rjkrocks Jan 20 '12 at 14:14

marked as duplicate by jokerdino♦, Ringtail, Jacob Johan Edwards, hhlp, fossfreedom♦ May 5 '12 at 15:25

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Maybe you're missing two packages.

  • unity-place-applications
  • unity-place-files

As described in this answer

Unity still tends to behave this way some times while it works other times. If so you might just restart unity with the following command (Alt+F2):

unity --replace
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up vote 1 down vote

My first bet would be it's related to your configuration. Maybe you installed something that may have altered the dash? Anyway, when unity does strange things to me, I always reset its settings, it always works for me (I'm also using 11.04):

In console / In Execute (ALT+F2):

unity --reset

Note that this will reset all unity settings to their defaults. These settings are usually accessible through CompizConfig manager (ccsm). It will reload unity, although you might want to completely log off and back in, just to make sure everything is correctly reloaded.

In the worst case (I've never tested this though, proceed with care), you might want temporarily switch to another desktop environment (gnome shell, gnome classic, ... -> can be selected at login) and, using the Software Center, remove unity, and reinstall it.

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I completely reinstalled unity without effect. Don't think unity --reset will do something. But thanks for the answer! :D – con-f-use Jan 20 '12 at 14:12
Strange... Have you tried loading unity with a clean /home profile? I've never done it, but I suppose (temporarily) creating a new user would be the easiest way to do it. If that still doesn't work, (and I hate to suggest things like this), switching to another desktop environment, or completely reinstalling Ubuntu might be the only possible solutions. I suppose, when you load an Ubuntu installation from a USB stick/CD, it works correctly? – Mr. Pixel Jan 20 '12 at 14:39
@con-f-use: Reinstalling a package doesn't change your personal configuration. unity --reset does that - it resets your personal configuration of Unity to the default settings. – Florian Diesch Jan 20 '12 at 15:39
Thanks alot guys. I was planning on reinstalling my system next week either way. As to unity --reset and new, clean user no change. Also just to be a smart-ass: Should purging a package remove everything about this package? – con-f-use Jan 20 '12 at 15:58
AFAIK --purge also removes config files, and maybe everything that was created during the installation of the package, whereas a normal remove should simply remove the binaries, possibly leaving files behind. Since even a clean home folder doesn't get the job done, it can only be related to the core of unity. Do you happen to have "development" repositories in your software sources, which might have updated your unity to an unstable version? It's my last bet, besides that, I have no more ideas :( I can hardly imagine it's related to your graphical drivers. – Mr. Pixel Jan 20 '12 at 16:06
up vote 0 down vote

When you enter a name in the Dash it looks to the application and files lens to display matching options. unity-place-applications and unity-place-files are no longer used in 11.10 as they've both been replaced with a lens. From your display you are missing those lens. The Dash allows selection of a lens in the bottom line where you only have a Home and Music icon. You may need to install:

unity-lens-applications

unity-lens-files

Run the Software Center and search foe unity-lens to see if they are indeed installed, if not you can install from there.

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