11.04-11.10 Upgrade Crisis - No launcher

"Additionally, the normal icons at the right of the top bar are completely missing"

Which icons are you referring to?

'and the top left contains "File", "Edit", "View", "Go" "Bookmarks" and "Help".'

If I understand you correctly, that's the application menubar for Nautilus, the file browser. It is normal behavior for that to be present at the top left of the screen in Oneiric, when the active application is either your desktop or a file browser window. These might also be the menu names for your web browser (if you are seeing it while browsing the web).

"The Ubuntu logo does not show top left."

The home button, which has the Ubuntu logo on it, has been moved into the launcher--it now always sits at the top of the launcher. Since you are unable to see the launcher, you are also unable to see the Ubuntu logo. Once your problem with the launcher is fixed, you'll have access to the home button at the top of it as well.

Does the Super (Windows) key make the launcher appear?

Does Alt+F2 have any effect?

If one or both of those does make the launcher appear, I am not saying that you should be content with that. But if we can get the launcher to appear via inconvenient means, we can use the launcher to fix the launcher. Otherwise, we'll have to do it another way.

Eliah,

Thanks for your thoughts on this one.

The icons I am referring to on the top right of the top bar, are or were for 11.04 networking, volume, an envelope for chat, Ubuntu One etc, the time, the account user's name and the close down etc icon. Maybe they are supposed to be missing in 11.10.

Thank you for your points about the top left menu items. What is strange in 11.04 the Firefox menu options appeared in the top bar when the cursor points to the bar, but now they are all contained within the application window. Is this new behaviour?

The windows key has no affect, nor does Alt+F2. Additionally I tried F4 which made the window disappear from the screen to nowhere and there seems to be no way of getting it back as I have no launcher.

Additionally USB devices do not appear on the desktop. Is this normal behaviour for 11.10?

Would it make sense to try another interface?

regards,
John

Hi John. I have the same problem as well... after upgrading on the first reboot everything was ok, unity working and so on... I booted today... and no unity bar, no shutdown button and the others from the right side... just File/Edit/View/Go/etc
Its not a GFX problem since I have a GTS 450... someone proposed to use terminal and type unity --replace , maybe this works, but im kind of noob with Linux and I dont know where to find the Terminal. Is there a hotkey for Terminal? Try it by yourself maybe it works :) ....

Ah, I see. You are missing significant elements of (or perhaps all of) the Unity panel (the top panel), as well as the launcher.

"What is strange in 11.04 the Firefox menu options appeared in the top bar when the cursor points to the bar, but now they are all contained within the application window. Is this new behaviour?"

It is not intended behavior. One of the parts of the panel that is not running is the appmenu indicator, which is responsible for displaying application menu bars at the top of the screen all the time. Since that is not working, you see the menu in the application window instead.

"Additionally I tried F4 which made the window disappear from the screen to nowhere and there seems to be no way of getting it back as I have no launcher."

Alt+Tab will probably bring it back.

"Additionally USB devices do not appear on the desktop. Is this normal behaviour for 11.10?"

No, it is not, and I am unsure what would cause that, since the desktop is provided by Nautilus rather than any part of Unity. Perhaps Nautilus is not getting launched. Let's fix the problem with Unity first and then see if you still have this problem.

"Would it make sense to try another interface?"

If you need immediate relief then yes, that would probably do the trick, but I think we can fix this problem.

What, if anything, happens when you run "unity --replace" (without the quotes)? If you have a way to open a Terminal window (say, with Ctrl+Alt+T), then you could run it in the Terminal. Otherwise, since you cannot run commands with Alt+F2, you'll have to switch to a different virtual console (you can switch to the first one, tty1, by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1), then then log in (don't worry that you don't see any placeholder characters like * as you are entering your password), and then run it in the shell when you see the $ _ prompt appear. You will probably have to press Alt+F7 to get back to the virtual console on which the GUI is running. (If Alt+F7 doesn't put you back to your GUI, try Alt+F8.)

"unity --replace" can take some time to do its work--it will start a new Unity session and replace the old one with it. That might fix the problem, for the rest of the session. If it does not, try "unity --reset". If that doesn't work, try "compiz --reset". If you are running these commands in a command-line interface then you need to have the $ _ prompt when you run them. (You can get additional virtual consoles to work with with Ctrl+Alt+F2, Ctrl+Alt+F3, and so forth.)

This will not be a permanent solution, because even if one of these commands works, you don't want to have to do this every time you start a Unity session. But if this fixes the problem, then we can make it permanent (or perhaps, even better, use the information to find a genuine solution to whatever is the root cause of the problem).

@Damian Wcislik
Hi Damian, I just noticed your post, and that you were not subscribed to this thread (so you might or might not have seen my previous post). I've just subscribed you. My last post (#4 as numbered at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+question/174539) explains how to run "unity --replace" and also gives a couple of other commands to try if that does not work. Please let us know if that helps, by posting a description of what occurs using the "Just Add a Comment" button after trying it (same way you posted just recently).

@Eliah Kagan
Thx for adding me. So I must wait for it? I did managed to log in with unity 2D and its working...
The other thing I did is to install the other version of the NVIDIA driver but i dont see any difference, after I rebooted.
I have an other question? I will try the commands, but when I will know that its finished its work...? It will show me something?
Anyways, im rebooting and trying again! I will be in touch.

This is what I get from the console:

damianmax@damianmax-EP45-UD3LR:~$ unity --reset
unity-panel-service: no process found
Checking if settings need to be migrated ...no
Checking if internal files need to be migrated ...no
Backend : gconf
Integration : true
Profile : default
Adding plugins
Skipping upgrade com.canonical.unity.unity.01.upgrade
Skipping upgrade com.canonical.unity.unity.02.upgrade
Initializing core options...done
Initializing bailer options...done
Initializing detection options...done
Initializing composite options...done
Initializing opengl options...done
Initializing decor options...done
Initializing mousepoll options...done
Initializing vpswitch options...done
Initializing animation options...done
Initializing snap options...done
compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture
Initializing expo options...done
Initializing move options...done
Initializing place options...done
Initializing grid options...done
Initializing gnomecompat options...done
Initializing wall options...done
Initializing ezoom options...done
Initializing workarounds options...done
Initializing staticswitcher options...done
Initializing resize options...done
Initializing fade options...done
Initializing scale options...done
Initializing session options...done
compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event from request at 443176 (now: 743597)

compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.

When I run compiz --replace I get:

compiz (core) - Fatal: Couldnt open display

@Damian Wcislik
How are you running these commands? Are you running them in a Terminal window? Do they (temporarily) fix the problem, or does the recreated desktop have the same problem? What happened when you ran just "unity --replace"?

Eliah,

When I ran uunity --replace the process stopped on:

Setting Update "run_key"

And during the process to that point all Initializing activities seemed to complete but I got the line:

compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture

I have left it an age to run and it seems to have stopped. I will now try the other options.

regards,
John

Eliah,

when I ran unity --reset I got: compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture again

This also appeared: unity-panel-service: no process found

And then these errors:

WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:51 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method InfoRequest proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/files does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:51 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method SetActive proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/files does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:51 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method InfoRequest proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/music does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:51 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method SetActive proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/music does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:52 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method InfoRequest proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/commands does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:52 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method SetActive proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/commands does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:52 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method InfoRequest proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/applications does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:52 unity.glib.dbusproxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:255 Cannot call method SetActive proxy /com/canonical/unity/lens/applications does not exist
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:52 unity.iconloader IconLoader.cpp:509 Unable to load contents of file:///usr/share/icons/unity-icon-theme/places/svg/category-installed.svg: Error opening file: No such file or directory
WARN 2011-10-16 15:01:52 unity.iconloader IconLoader.cpp:509 Unable to load contents of file:///usr/share/icons/unity-icon-theme/places/svg/category-available.svg: Error opening file: No such file or directory

However the Launcher has now reappeared.

What next?

regards,
John

Same problem here: unity3d not working after upgrade to 11.10.
Unity2d does work, but am also experiencing other problems: can't access NAS, nautilus "hangs"...
Am rather anoyed at all this.

@ Eliah

I ran them in the Terminal window, the same error in window and the same in Virtual Terminal.
The screen flickers for a while... but nothing happens... things are the same... no it doesnt fix the problem,
then I get the:

compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event from request at 443176 (now: 743597)

compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x320012f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you shouldprobably file a bug about this.

and also in the middle of the lines I get the same message as Mr. John

 compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture again

And when I execute compiz --replace i get the same thing as previously... (I execute those commands in the terminal as You have told us as in tty1 and tty2...

I have the same problem (posted a question too before I found this thread). When I run unity --reset I get the same list of 'initializations' as Damian, down to 'initializing session options', then the process apparently hangs - when I try to close the Terminal, it tells me a process is still running.

'compiz --replace' also gave the same results as Damian, down to 'initilizing session options'.

Eliah,

With your help the problem appears to have gone away. I did the "unity --reset" routine a couple of times yesterday as each time I rebooted it had to be done to make Unity work properly. Today I started the computer and the Unity interface came up perfectly. The only thing is that the upgrade seems to have eradicated my password database.

The other strange thing is that my /etc/resolve.conf file seems to get over-written by NetworkManager with a blank entry every time I boot up so I have to manually re-enter the necessary information for nameservers. Before this current problem I had been trying to move from an ethernet network to a wireless one - unsuccessfully. Do you think it has anything to do with that?

regards,
John

Hi again! Nice to hear that someone did it...
Those commands didnt do anything in my case...
I figured out that its a kind of issue with compiz.
I installed the Gnome 3 Classic interface, then I logged into it.
I installed Docky, made it startup on logon.
I putted on Docky the Compiz ConfigSettings Manager(*CCSM) .
Then I restarted, I logged into Unity, started the CCSM*.
In the settings the Unity PlugIn was unchecked so I enabled it. Resolved the key conflicts...
AND WOOLA! IT WORKS! :)
I also noticed when I logged into Gnome Classic that the 3D settings where disabled, but I had the Compiz Fuzion Icon,
so I right clicked on it and clicked Reload Window Manager... or something called like that... and after the reload the 3D settings and effects where enabled... Strange path I took... but it worked :)

Regards,
Damian

Eliah,

Thanks for your help. Unity now seems relatively stable. I think my other problems are for a separate support group so I will close this question.

Thanks for you help, once again.

regards,
John