Unity just disappears after changing launcher icon size and won't come back

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Unity doesn't load, no Launcher, no Dash appears

What I did:

In a fresh setup of 11.10, I used compizconfig-settings-manager as explained in this question to change the icon size of the Unity launcher.

What happened:

As soon as I did this, the application froze and the launcher disappeared. I thought, well, maybe Unity crashed, so I logged out with Ctrl-Alt-Del, and logged in again.

Unity still does not appear anymore. I am just left with my desktop background and Nautilus running. I can open a new Nautilus window, and browse my file system, but that's about it.

What works:

I can log into Unity 2D, only the "normal" Unity does not work.

So, how do I get Unity back? Is there any way to reset the configuration, or look for some more detailed error messages?

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What I already tried:

• Starting a Terminal and running unity --reset. It's stuck at "Initializing session options … done", and nothing else happens.
• Starting a Terminal and running unity --replace. Same as above.
• From the 2D mode, calling unity --replace or -- reset. It hangs after "Starting unity-window-decorator", and if I abort the process, my keyboard input is disabled.

Solution 1

I'm pretty sure I had the same problem as you.

What I did to fix it was open a Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), type ccsm in the Terminal and then enabled the Ubuntu Unity plugin and it now works again.

• Warning: What are some of the issues with CCSM and why would I want to avoid it?

Solution 2

I had the same problem but none of the solutions explained here works.

Here is how I solved my Unity launcher problem:

• Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T
• Open the compizconfig-settings-manager with this command : ccsm (if it's not installed, use sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager)
• Click on the category: Desktop
• Marked Ubuntu Unity Plugin and answer to all the conflict key you may have
• Unity Launcher is back!

Comments

[Mantra]

I can do this in Unity 2D terminal, but that doesn't help. I went to /usr/bin/X11/xterm and entered the above command, but it's stuck at Initializing session options … done.

[RobinJ]

That's strange... Output of /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p?

[Mantra]

All positive...

[Mantra]

No luck either. It hangs at "starting unity-window-decorator", and if I abort the process then, my keyboard stops working, and nothing is really fixed.

[Mantra]

This is exactly it. It gave me a message about resolving conflicts, but I ignored and skipped it. Seems to work for now!

[Mantra]

> none of the solutions explained here works – yes, of course. The one I marked as accepted. Type ccsm in the terminal and tick the Ubuntu Unity Plugin. Also, please check your formatting, <pre> is only used for code.

[Ritesh M Nayak]

Talk about conflicts. There are about 7 key bindings that conflict with unity's settings.