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I was using my computer today (1st January 2017). Everything was working fine. I restarted my computer. I have two accounts, user account and guest account. I clicked on my user account and entered my password, but all I get now is a purple blank screen (no side tool bar is showing either, no access to the terminal). Why did this happen on the new years day, this has never happened before, and I've had Ubuntu for years. Has this version expired or something? Anyways, I have some very important files on my hard drive, and I need to access them before I install the latest Ubuntu version.

I tried accessing my hard drive via LIVE UBUNTU CD by clicking devices/hard-drive/home/user-account but I get the following message: "This location could not be displayed. You do not have the permissions necessary to view the contents of this account".

I'm not reinstalling Ubuntu because I don't want to risk losing any of my files. Does anyone know how to access the hard drive via live CD, recovery mode, or any other way? The easiest and quickest way of course. I don't know any terminal or command lines, please share these with me if these are required to access my hard drive. Thanks

UPDATE:

The system is not frozen, the desktop is just blank purple screen with no side tool bar. I can move the mouse cursor around but there is nothing there to click on. I tried CTRL+ALT+F1 and I can access the black screened terminal. The terminal asked for my login and password. I entered it and I got the following message.

"Current version 14:04:3. New release 16.04.1 is available. Run do-release-upgrade"

Then the sudo:$ appears, but what command do I type to access all the files on my hard drive, desktop, documents, downloads, firefox bookmarks, etc? I will not upgrade to the new release because that involves a risk losing all my files.

Thanks for all your comments and support. Happy New Year!

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  • Zacharee1 - Yes that's exactly how the screen appears on my computer right now. I think why this happened is because my drive had filled up, I did get a few warnings to clear up some hard space, but I didn't expect it to end up like this. So which command line do you recommend for my situation?
    – user637192
    Jan 2, 2017 at 0:09

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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To show terminal, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and type

sudo -i
export DISPLAY=:0
dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
unity --reset-icons &disown
setsid unity
reboot

If this won't work, you may have Unity plugin disabled

apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
DISPLAY=:0 ccsm &

Now try to switch back to graphical interface pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7 (or F8) where the CompizConfig Settings Manager window will show. Find the Unity plugin and enable it. You will be asked 'Ubuntu Unity Plugin requires OpenGL plugin'. Enable Ubuntu Unity Plugin / Enable OpenGL. Now everything should work, or reboot.

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