No window manager after Ubuntu update (e.g. 13.10 to 14.04)

Question

Machine is a single boot Linux.

After upgrading from 13.10 to 14.04 today, my son's account starts without a window manager. He has his desktop icons and can click them but no menu and no launcher. I can start applications from the desktop icons but they start without window decorations.

The funny thing is that on my account on the same machine there is no problem. I log in and everything looks right, just like it was in 13.10. I tried to kill compiz on my session and got a similar effect. So I guess it is related to a compiz problem in my son's account.

I managed to put an icon that runs compiz --debug on my son's desktop. Here's the result:

/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: core
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Trying to load core from: /home/alon/.compiz-1/plugins/libcore.so
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: dlopen failed: /home/alon/.compiz-1/plugins/libcore.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Trying to load core from: /usr/lib/compiz/libcore.so
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: dlopen failed: /usr/lib/compiz/libcore.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: core
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Started plugin: core
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: pending request:
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event serial: 1152
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event window 0x3c00090
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - x: 0 y: 0 width: 0 height: 0 border: 0, sibling: 0x0
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: pending request:
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event serial: 1422
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event window 0x3c00093
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - x: 954 y: 635 width: 875 height: 514 border: 0, sibling: 0x3c00090
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: pending request:
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event serial: 1543
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event window 0x3c00096
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - x: 0 y: 0 width: 722 height: 434 border: 0, sibling: 0x3c00093
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ccp
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Trying to load ccp from: /home/alon/.compiz-1/plugins/libccp.so
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: dlopen failed: /home/alon/.compiz-1/plugins/libccp.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Trying to load ccp from: /usr/lib/compiz/libccp.so
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Opened library: /usr/lib/compiz/libccp.so
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Loaded plugin ccp from: /usr/lib/compiz/libccp.so
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: ccp
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: Started plugin: ccp
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: refusing to manage window 0x3c00090
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: received event:
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event serial: 1152
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event window 0x3c00090
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - x: 0 y: 0 width: 0 height: 0 border: 0, sibling: 0x0
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: refusing to manage window 0x3c00093
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: received event:
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event serial: 1422
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event window 0x3c00093
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - x: 954 y: 635 width: 875 height: 514 border: 0, sibling: 0x3c00090
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: refusing to manage window 0x3c00096
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: received event:
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event serial: 1543
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - event window 0x3c00096
/usr/bin/compiz (core) - Debug: - x: 0 y: 0 width: 722 height: 434 border: 0, sibling: 0x3c00093

I don't know how to advance from here... please help.

Update: I tried to uninstall compiz as @Jeffrey suggested... and it resulted in my own account getting the same problem (no window manager, only desktop icons). Luckily I had an old backup and restoring got my window manager back. I learned in this process that it's not just compiz but also unity and ubuntu-desktop - if either is uninstalled, I get the same problem.

Unfortunately the restore operation is not a real remedy - when I log out and then login, the new session still starts without a window manager... I have to redo the restore to get it back.

Some more information:

• The window decorations, menu bar and launcher just appear at some point during the restore.
• I created a new backup (after restoring) and tried to restore it instead of the old one - this doesn't do the trick. Even though the contents should be identical, the window manager doesn't appear unless I restore the old backup.

Another update: I found a crash log in /var/crash/_usr_bin_compiz.1001.crash - a large file with lots of library names listed, then a base64-encoded core dump... I can upload the text part if necessary.

Update: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1292396 describes a similar problem. The solution suggested there is to delete /home/user/.config/dconf/user. This solved the problem of my account, but my son's accont (in which the original problem appeared) still doesn't have a window manager even after applying this in his account.

Update March 4 2016: same issue after updating from 15.04 to 15.10, so it's not version-specific. Using Corey's answer below solved the issue quickly.

Solution

We had a similar issue and went through removing (renaming) some related files for the user. It was eventually fixed by removing (renaming) compizconfig-1 in the .cache directory for the affected user.

Comments

[samael]

deleting ~/.config/dconf/user seemed to be the fix for me. I had previously tried reinstalling compiz, unity, and the AMD drivers. As well as deleting ~/.cache/compizconfig-1

[Gayan Weerakutti]

rm -r ~/.config ~/.cache will fix most problems.

[laugh salutes Monica C]

I had the same issue now when upgrading from 15.04 to 15.10. Your answer worked again, saved me hours of searching. Sorry I can't upvote more than once...