Ubuntu 13.10 Unity doesn't load after upgrade

Question

Just upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10 only to find that Unity won't load (login freezes, after doing ctrl+alt+F1, logging in and then doing startx, I get a blank desktop and the mouse pointer, and nothing else). I can right click, but the only operations that work are "create new file" and "create new folder". For example, "change desktop background" doesn't work. Also, after doing a few right clicks and choosing "change desktop background", I get a warning message box: "compiz closed unexpectedly."

Guest login works fine.

Tried creating a new user, but I experience the same thing with the new user.

Tried removing all configuration files from my home directory... same thing.

Doing dconf reset -f /org/compiz/ gives an error "error spawning command line..."

Doing unity --reset also gives errors.

Tried uninstalling unity (and compiz) and reinstalling, but that doesn't help. Tried reconfiguring lightdm, didn't help.

I don't have any proprietary drivers installed.

Once again, the funny thing is that the guest session works fine.

Solution 1

I had the same thing, and i press CRTL-Alt-T, to have a terminal. after that i enter ccsm to have compiz configurator. To the left, under all categories, i selected Preferences,and on the new screen i selected unity profil. Wait a few seconds and normally the launcher appers.

Solution 2

I can confirm that using ccsm solved my issue. I had some keybinding conflicts after the upgrade from 13.04-13.10 and as a result the "Enable Ubuntu Unity Plugin" box was unchecked.

Comments

[user68186]

See the second answer in How do I reset my Unity configuration?

[Admin]

@user68186: Well, this would only try to reset things through dconf (it seems the command is only a wrapper for a bunch of dconf reset commands). But as I said in my post, dconf is misbehaving. When I run what you suggested, I get a whole host of errors: "failed to commit changes to dconf: error spawning command line..."

[virtualxtc]

Seems to be a problem with Cinnamon see: askubuntu.com/questions/360772/…

[Admin]

Assuming you have Cinnamon installed. I don't.

[tasseb]

Thank you for your answer. I'll leave the question open for now, as I can't confirm this since I just went ahead and did a fresh install.

[Karol Wasowski]

Thanks! Maybe a comment below Marc-Andre's answer would be more appropriate.

[che---]

Hi, that solved my problem with unity (i could login but no unity functionality was available).

[Nicolai Fröhlich]

Fixed this issue for me on Ubuntu 13.10. I started ccsm, clicked reset to defaults in the Preferences tab and experienced no more crashes ever since.