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This is going on with a laptop bought recently with Ubuntu 16.04 pre-installed. Today after logging in I only get a wallpaper and the mouse pointer. Going through this old thread I am able to get the launcher going by running:

export DISPLAY=:0
dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
setsid unity

But this command sequence does not recover back the dash, nor the desktop. Also many windows are rendered with wierd decorations.

I then tried to install alternative DE, Xubuntu and Lubuntu. If I try to log on with those, again I only get the wallpaper. Therefore, this is likely not an issue with Unity itself. Could have it been caused by some driver that got updated?

This is the hardware set up:

$ lspci |more
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Sky Lake Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 08)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Sky Lake Integrated Graphics (rev 07)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 21)
00:14.2 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP Thermal subsystem (rev 21)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP CSME HECI (rev 21)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 21)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PCI Express Root Port (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 21)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP PMC (rev 21)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio (rev 21)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-LP SMBus (rev 21)
01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 3160 (rev 83)

Detailed information on the graphics card:

$ lshw -c video
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Sky Lake Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 07
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915_bpo latency=0
       resources: irq:125 memory:de000000-deffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff ioport:f000(size=64)

Update I: I have found a few other questions reporting issues with Ubuntu 16.04 running on Intel Graphics cards, that may be related to this issue. This answer suggests re-installing the Xorg drivers:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg 

However, this did not solve my issue either.

Update II: In another question it is suggested the installation of a newer kernel:

wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.5.1-wily/linux-headers-4.5.1-040501_4.5.1-040501.201604121331_all.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.5.1-wily/linux-headers-4.5.1-040501-generic_4.5.1-040501.201604121331_amd64.deb
wget http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.5.1-wily/linux-image-4.5.1-040501-generic_4.5.1-040501.201604121331_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

But even with this new kernel I am not able to log on to any DE.

Update III: I booted from a USB drive with Ubuntu 14.04 and with that system everything is going fine. I suspect there is something wrong with kernel 4 and this particular graphics card.

Update IV: Over the weekend an update to Ubuntu 16.04 on a desktop computer, also with an Intel i7 chipset, again rendered the system unusable. This time the boot process freezes midway through. There is apparently a broad issue between Ubuntu 16.04 and some Intel chipsets.

**Update V*: I went away on holidays soon after I posted this question. When I returned back the system update solved the issue in all the i7 systems I was working on at the time. This means I am not sure exactly which package did it. But the broad conclusion is: install the available updates.

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  • Did you already try all other answers to that linked question?
    – Byte Commander
    Aug 2, 2016 at 20:09
  • Most solutions no longer apply to Ubuntu 16.04. Those that do apply, at best bring back the launcher. But since the problem remains with the two other DE, it means this is not an issue with Unity itself. Aug 3, 2016 at 6:04

1 Answer 1

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Having spent an entire day probing various possible solutions from the old thread with no success, here is the solution(s) that worked for me on 16.04 LTS:

I did the following two things:

  1. @julianromera's solution referred to an Ubuntu open bug. More info: lp#1285444 His command line was:

    $ mv ~/.config/dconf/user ~/.config/dconf/user.old
    
  2. @Fullbuffer's solution on another forum was moving the ~/.cache directory out of the way and restart. His command line was:

    $ mv ~/.cache ~/.cache-NOGOOD
    

then rebooted with ($ sudo reboot) and now I'm up and running. I've no idea which of these two command lines did the trick but do I care?

Hope this will help someone! One advise: do not despair! If I managed to find a solution that actually works then anybody can :)

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