Ubuntu 16.04 no menu bar or launcher - help!

Question

Just upgraded to 16.04. Due the screen flicker I followed the guide posted by Zacharee 1! The screen doesn't flicker anymore. However although I can login there is no menu bar of launcher. I've tried various guides to restore it in previous Ubuntu's like rm -rf .compiz-1, rm -rf ~/.config and sudo apt-get install unity. Nothing works and I can't find something specific for 16.04. I'm on a Skylake system with Nvidia GTX 950.

Solution 1

Had same issue after fooling around with unity-tweak-tool. The following terminal commands helped for me (tnx to ubuntuhandbook.org):

dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
setsid unity

Solution 2

rm -rf ~/.config/compiz-1/compizconfig/*

is the best trick. Reboot after this.

Solution 3

typing ccsm and selecting unity launcher did it.

From a tty, run the following commands:

export DISPLAY=:0
ccsm

Then, you may need to press CTRL+ALT+f7 to get back to the x session.

Solution 4

Short answer: If none of the standard posted solutions (using dconf, gconftool-2, ccsm, unity, etc.) work, try temporarily disabling the autostart apps. Here's one way to do that:

mv ~/.config/autostart ~/.config/autostartBAK 

Log out then log back in again. If the problem is resolved, it is a good bet one of the autostart programs was crashing. You can then figure out which one, then move everything but that one back to ~/.config/autostart.

Long answer: In my case, the 16.04 upgrade went fine, but out of the blue several weeks later this "no menu bar or launcher" problem appeared. None of the usual posted solutions worked. But logging in to a newly created user account did not exhibit the problem, so I knew the problem was strictly in my home directory. Checking ~/.xsession-errors, I noticed that one app was crashing on startup (my-weather-indicator). Removing file "my-weather-indicator-autostart.desktop" from ~/.config/autostart solved it.

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Comments

[EvgenijM86]

Worked for me. I did it by right clicking on desktop space, opening terminal and typing those commands as normal user (not root).

[Tom - Ubuntu UK]

I literally typed ccsm in to the terminal and it appeared

[mchid]

@John I have updated the instructions

[David Foerster]

Could you please accept your own answer to show other readers that this answer is valid and worked for you?

[Ben Kovitz]

I can run ccsm, but how do I "select unity launcher"?

[Collin]

You can simply log out and log in again if you don't want to reboot. But reboot is the best option

[Surjeet Bhadauriya]

Thanks, man. It works for me. From the last 2 months, i lost my menu and all due to unity-tweak-tool. Applied many solutions. But only your answer worked for me. Really thank you.

[user965586]

For me none of the options discussed here work for me. I can log into a guest account and all works as expected, no issues with the desktop etc but my account remains broken. I have noticed a screen "flicker" when loading my account up that doesn't happen on the guest account load, it looks more like the desktop is been zoomed in, it's missing the 16.04 LTS watermark for example...I'll keep trying

[tparker]

This didn't work work for me, but rm -rf ~/.cache/compizconfig-1 did. Credit to askubuntu.com/a/827135/614670

[user965586]

In the end I updated the whole install to 17.10 and it fixed things. Not a great solution really, but it worked

[Randall Whitman]

After removing those files, for me it sufficed to run setsid unity rather than logout or reboot.

[fret]

There is no "unity launcher" to select... sigh.