14.04 LTS No Dash / Launcher after update through Software Updater

Question

I'm getting no Dash / Launcher after I login. This started after an update through the Software updater. Please help to fix ... I've already lost a day trying different options posted on askubuntu.com. Nothing worked.

Got to the terminal via Ctl + Alt + F1 and logged-in successfully.

Here are the logs:
.xsession-errors
Script for ibus started at run_im.
init: unity-panel-service main process (2315) terminated with status 1
init: indicator-printers main process (2459) terminated with status 1
init: unity-settings-daemon main process (2300) terminated with status 1
init: upstart-dbus-session-bridge main process (2293) terminated with status 1
init: hud main process (2304) killed by TERM signal
init: indicator-bluetooth main process (2446) killed by TERM signal
init: indicator-power main process (2448) killed by TERM signal
init: indicator-datetime main process (2451) killed by TERM signal
init: indicator-sound main process (2453) killed by TERM signal
init: indicator-session main process (2483) killed by TERM signal
init: indicator-application main process (2486) killed by TERM signal
init: Disconnected from notified D-Bus bus

UPDATE (Jun 8, 2014):

Okay, I have reset unity, but I cannot login normally via the login screen.
Steps I follow:
1. Login screen -> blank ... No dash / no launcher / No Status (Notification) Bar on top
2. Ctrl+Alt+F1 to bash terminal
3. export DISPLAY=:0
4. unity-tweak-tool --reset-unity (This does not complete, blocks on OpenGL)
5. I anyways continue to by doing: Ctrl+Alt+F7.
6. Launcher & Dash look good. But there is (a) No Status / Notification Bar on top
7. Continuing to work this way. Haven't logged out since.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem, I solved it by switching in terminal (CTRL+ALT+F1) then removing the configuration file ~/.config/dconf/user like this :

(! this action will remove your gnome 3 settings !)

sudo service lightdm stop
rm ~/.config/dconf/user
sudo service lightdm start

Answer 2

First, check your machine is fully updated. Open command line (Ctrl + Alt + F1):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If you get any errors, run:

sudo apt-get install -f

Then rerun to first two commands to ensure no further errors. After that you can try logging in (Ctrl-Alt-F7 to change to you GUI) to see if Unity is now working.

If Unity is still not running, follow these instructions to reset your unity configuration, (from How do I reset my Unity configuration?):

With 14.04 install unity-tweak-tool:

sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

Then run the follow command to reset Unity to defaults:

unity-tweak-tool --reset-unity

Answer 3

Trying to do this it work very well:

Ctrl+Alt+F1/F2

Enter your login and your password and run the three following commands:

sudo service lightdm stop
rm ~/.config/dconf/user
sudo service lightdm start 

Answer 4

Its solving the problem in following steps:

1) step-1: $sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

It will complain about 'dpkg'

2) step-2: $sudo dpkg --configure -a

3) step-3: $sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

Hope it will resolve it. Arun Dhwaj

Answer 5

I had a similar issue and I tried almost all solutions listed above. Turns out it was an issue with the permission for home directory. May be an FTP transfer had reset the directory permissions. Below are the commands I used to fix the issue

sudo chown /home/ sudo chown /home//.Xauthority

Answer 6

CTRL-ALT-F1

mv -v ~/.gconf ~/.gconf-old

then Code: [Select]

mv -v ~/.config/dconf ~/.config/dconf-old

then log off/on

Renames the conf files and makes some new ones.