My Launcher does not appear in 11.10????

Are you able to log in, or does this happen before you get to the log-in screen?

If it happens after log in, are you able to open a terminal with ctrl + alt +t?
Are you able to run command with alt + f2?

Yes I can log in and I can open a terminal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mikal Meltvik" <email address hidden>
To: "greg oconnor" <email address hidden>
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 7:05:58 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: [Question #176409]: My Launcher does not appear in 11.10????

Your question #176409 on unity in Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+question/176409

    Status: Open => Needs information

Mikal Meltvik requested more information:
Are you able to log in, or does this happen before you get to the log-in
screen?

If it happens after log in, are you able to open a terminal with ctrl + alt +t?
Are you able to run command with alt + f2?

--
To answer this request for more information, you can either reply to
this email or enter your reply at the following page:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+question/176409

You received this question notification because you asked the question.

Hi. I had a similar--ish problem & posted today. Reply & solution from Q: 176876 by Eliah Kagan sorted me - might be a red herring but it is very simple & worth a try.

Try issuing the command "unity --reset" in the terminal.

My Menu Launcher disappeared after I did something in the compiz. I couldn't remember which box I marked check. I tried everything in this launchpad, but so far no success. When I typed 'unity - reset', the screen looked it was reset, but I couldn't drag window around on the screen with mouse. It is locked up in place. I regretted upgrading my Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10. Anyway, please help? or any tips? Thank you.

Try "unity --replace".

Also, make sure you are using 2 dashes in "unity --reset".

If that doesn't work, type "gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz" in the terminal and reboot your machine afterwards.
The last command there will reset your compiz settings to default.

Good luck!

Note: I'm adding this here in the hope that it will help someone. It's not clear if the OP managed to fix the problem.

This seems to be a recurring theme with Unity, with two main causes:

Firstly, systems that are upgraded are failing, possibly because of some compiz settings that were changed previously and are no longer compatible with Unity.

Secondly, if someone has a working system such as a fresh install and installs compiz-manager to change some settings in Unity, a poor choice can lead to a seriously broken system. "Poor choice" can be something completely unexpected or innocuous.

For some people the two commands

unity --reset
and
gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz

seem to do the trick, but in other cases they have no or very little affect. I've been frustrated several times by questions here on launchpad about resetting Unity, that were not solved by these commands. In an effort to learn more about the problem and find a possible fix I installed compiz-manager and made one change, to enable wobby windows. I then closed compiz-managed, logged out, then logged in again.

Result? A very broken Unity. The launcher was missing, and the usual top panel was also gone, being replaced by the Nautilus menu bar and nothing else. Everything that should have been running at boot (gkrellm, backup daemon, update daemon etc was all running perfectly. I just couldn't start any new programs.

Since the 'run command' <alt><F2> is part of the Unity Launcher I couldn't do that either. I _could_ open a terminal window with <ctrl><alt>t and was able to run the above commands, neither of which helped in the slightest.

I then started removing compiz, gconf, and dconf files in the hope that it would cause Unity to re-generate some default configs but it did not. Eventually the system deteriorated where I could not longer open a terminal windows so had to use a console instead. Mostly, Unity reset just seemed to hang half way through, so I suspect it was never going to work even before I started deleting files.

Finally I decided to re-install, which I did, using the same /home partition and username. ---> You guessed it, Unity was still broken on the fresh install. Whatever is broken is definitely part of the config in the user home directory. I just don't know what or where.

So, last resort, I thought I could completely remove the unity plugin and re-install it. apt-get didn't know about unity-plugin, but it was quite happy to remove unity:

sudo apt-get purge unity

It prompted to remove two applications, to which I said 'yes'.

I then found that apt-get didn't know about 'unity' to install it again. I presumed I would have to install the two application separately, but couldn't verify the names or how to install them. Curious, I decided to boot the system anyway and see how badly broken it was. LightDM started fine. I made sure "Ubuntu" was the selected DE and logged in.

What was left of the 'desktop' came up to a grey blank screen. Ah, I though: Very Broken. The grey screen only lasted a few seconds however... the background loaded and... The launcher and Unity panel opened up. Everything is back to normal!

Is the fix that simple? Obviously I'm not understanding how it's all working. I expected Unity to still be very badly broken, but instead I found I'd removed enough to force it to initialise itself and start from scratch. I'm not sure I can advocate removing unity as a fix, but it did seem to kick start the whole thing and is working correctly now in all respects. I guess I'll have to break it a few more times just to prove it to myself.

Wobby windows anyone?

Chris.