unity icons disappear

Asked by Emmanuel

After upgrading from 12.04 to 12.10, unity started to have an abnormal behaviour.
A few seconds after login, the left icon bar, the top menu bar, and the window decorations, disappear.
This happens in two stages: there is first a blink, and a couple seconds later the stuff disappears.

Switching to a console and typing unity --reset-icons restores unity for the whole session despite the a few suspect messages like:
  compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: opengl
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity **is** fully supported by your hardware.
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity **is not** supported by your hardware. Enabling software rendering instead (slow).
  compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: opengl
or
  compiz (opengl) - Error: FBO is incomplete: GL::FRAMEBUFFER_UNSUPPORTED (0x8cdd)

I've got a nvidia graphics card whose drivers come from package nvidia-current and glxinfo shows direct rendering is active, also texture compression is deactivated in compiz.

How to fix this behaviour of unity?

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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15
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N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said :
#1

Try to uninstall and re-install the graphics driver.

    sudo apt-get purge nvidia-*
    sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then reboot (you will use nouveau) .

Then install again , but this time use the nvidia-updates.

    sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates nvidia-settings-updates
    sudo nvidia-xconfig

Reboot one more time and see if problem fixed.

A useful info would be (in case that problem not fixed) the results of

    /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

Regards
 NikTh

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Emmanuel (hacker-emmanuel) said :
#2

Thanks for your suggestion.
I followed it to the letter (except I did not log into the graphical interface for reinstalling the drivers) but the problem remains.

Here is the output of /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 9400 GT/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 304.88
Not software rendered: yes
Not blacklisted: yes
GLX fbconfig: yes
GLX texture from pixmap: yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program: yes
GL fragment program: yes
GL vertex buffer object: yes
GL framebuffer object: yes
GL version is 1.4+: yes
Unity 3D supported: yes

Interestingly enough, one message from unity --reset-icons has slightly changed.
From:
  compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: opengl
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity is fully supported by your hardware.
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity is not supported by your hardware. Enabling software rendering instead (slow).
  compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: opengl
It has become:
  compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: opengl
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity is not supported by your hardware. Enabling software rendering instead (slow).
  compiz (core) - Info: Unity is not supported by your hardware. Enabling software rendering instead (slow).
  compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: opengl

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Best N1ck 7h0m4d4k15 (nicktux) said :
#3

Would you mind to LOSE all your desktop settings ? Is very difficult (if some setting involves in this problem) to nail it down.

To reset all the settings to default values you can run one command in terminal . Then you must reboot your system

     rm -rf .compiz* .gconf* .config/dconf/ .config/compiz*

DO NOT MAKE A MISTAKE. Please copy from here and paste to terminal.

You graphics card seems to work OK so I assume this is a settings problem.

Regards
 NikTh

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Emmanuel (hacker-emmanuel) said :
#4

Thanks for your advice.
Out of two startups since implementing it, we have a 100% success rate.
So there is a good chance that the problem is fixed.
Thanks a lot.

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Emmanuel (hacker-emmanuel) said :
#5

Thanks NikTh, that solved my question.