Upgrade to 12.04 kills gnome-shell.

[yayramen]

Since you're at the point of considering a fresh install try another DE, couldn't hurt.

http://complete-concrete-concise.com...e-lxde-desktop

Hopefully that will give you a functioning desktop so you can continue to work on rectifying your gnome-shell issues.

I'm using gnome-classic now. And although a little laggy, it seems to be doing just fine. That's another thing, things are laggy now. Gnome-Do, for example, is my alt+f2 hotkey, and it takes an extra second or so to pop up. Just drudging along. I'm not all that surprised, as my computer is circa 2008ish, but it was top of the line then, with a dual core 2.4ghz proc, and 4gb RAM, so I don't know what's going on.

Oh wells. Maybe I'm stuck on gnome classic D:

Or, I could risk backing things up and restoring them later.

[yayramen]

I am just going to back up my stuff and re install 11.10.
I don't like how laggy my computer is with 12.04

[LemursDontExist]

I am just going to back up my stuff and re install 11.10.
I don't like how laggy my computer is with 12.04

This would be a good time to make separate root and home partitions if you haven't already. I did a fresh install yesterday, but I kept my home partition intact, and gnome-shell is working fine - not having to back up data saves a lot of time.

Also, if you manage to break your machine somehow, if you have a separate home partition, the 'reinstall' option is almost totally painless.

[yayramen]

This would be a good time to make separate root and home partitions if you haven't already. I did a fresh install yesterday, but I kept my home partition intact, and gnome-shell is working fine - not having to back up data saves a lot of time.

Also, if you manage to break your machine somehow, if you have a separate home partition, the 'reinstall' option is almost totally painless.

I have no idea what you mean separating home and root partitions. I didn't plan on wiping when I get 11.10 downloaded, it should at least leave the file structure intact, is what I'm hoping. I can fix programs and dependencies.

[LemursDontExist]

At install time you can choose to split your hard drive into partitions for various purposes. If you choose make a small (15-20GB) partition for root (/) and give the rest to /home then you can reinstall the OS will cleanly erasing what was there before without disturbing your data and settings which are all stored on /home.

This approach can save you a lot of time. For instance, instead of doing upgrades every 6 months, I can just wipe the root partition clean and do a fresh install, and it takes no longer than an upgrade with far less risk of bugs. As an added bonus, if you mess up your OS install, you can reinstall quickly without losing data or settings. I really can't recommend this strongly enough!

[yayramen]

At install time you can choose to split your hard drive into partitions for various purposes. If you choose make a small (15-20GB) partition for root (/) and give the rest to /home then you can reinstall the OS will cleanly erasing what was there before without disturbing your data and settings which are all stored on /home.

This approach can save you a lot of time. For instance, instead of doing upgrades every 6 months, I can just wipe the root partition clean and do a fresh install, and it takes no longer than an upgrade with far less risk of bugs. As an added bonus, if you mess up your OS install, you can reinstall quickly without losing data or settings. I really can't recommend this strongly enough!

That sounds good enough for me! I am currently waiting for my Documents folder to sync with Ubuntu One. Once that's done, I think I'm going to do a fresh install, as all my important work is already on github, and my music is on my phone.

Ubuntu One is taking too long, switched to dropbox, same difference though.

[johnnyhajjar]

i upgraded and had this problem. then i did a fresh install and still have this problem. Unity 2d works as does gnome classic. Regular gnome and unity do not work and I get an internal error message in gnome. Screen either stays black or I only see the Desktop (no menus or anything). I think it might be graphics driver related, but I am not sure, Any ideas? I have the nvidia current version driver installed. My computer is a amd turion 64 x2 hp laptop. I had no problems running gmone 3 in 11.10.

[yayramen]

i upgraded and had this problem. then i did a fresh install and still have this problem. Unity 2d works as does gnome classic. gnome and unity (regular( do not work and I get an internal error message in gnome. I think it might be graphics driver related, but U am not sure, Any ideas?

That sounds like a graphics driver to me. I'd boot into gnome classic and make sure everything's updated and try again. It's also fair to note that while I do have my gnome-shell back, I did it by wiping my computer and install 11.10 rather than 12.04. I unfortunately never figured out what went wrong, so I won't be able to help much.

[kohoutek1]

It's also fair to note that while I do have my gnome-shell back, I did it by wiping my computer and install 11.10 rather than 12.04. I unfortunately never figured out what went wrong, so I won't be able to help much.

Good to hear you got your shell back.

It would have been interesting to figure out what was conflicting in your previous installation.

I don't have the keyring issues, but then I don't make use of keyrings. I do have the screen lock enabled, but then I don't get a message that says "Please enter your password to unlock the keyring (or screen)." I only get a simple "Password:" window with an "Unlock" button. If you had keyring issues, you might try to see if others have reported similar bugs at launchpad.org.

It sounds like you might have had some extensions -- including possibly some framework items -- installed from 3.2 that were conflicting with those of 3.4. I also had some, and purging the extensions fixed it for me. There was one item I had to purge through synaptic, though: globalmenu-manager. That one was crashing my shell and it wasn't in my extension folders (globalmenu was, but not "-manager."). It was deprecated lib file left over from 3.2.

In that case, then fresh install would have fixed it for you, and apparently did.

[yayramen]

Good to hear you got your shell back.

It would have been interesting to figure out what was conflicting in your previous installation.

I don't have the keyring issues, but then I don't make use of keyrings. I do have the screen lock enabled, but then I don't get a message that says "Please enter your password to unlock the keyring (or screen)." I only get a simple "Password:" window with an "Unlock" button. If you had keyring issues, you might try to see if others have reported similar bugs at launchpad.org.

It sounds like you might have had some extensions -- including possibly some framework items -- installed from 3.2 that were conflicting with those of 3.4. I also had some, and purging the extensions fixed it for me. There was one item I had to purge through synaptic, though: globalmenu-manager. That one was crashing my shell and it wasn't in my extension folders (globalmenu was, but not "-manager."). It was deprecated lib file left over from 3.2.

In that case, then fresh install would have fixed it for you, and apparently did.

Yeah, I had tried that. I had a small number.
Disable hotspot, classic systray, remove accessibility button, and the alt-tab window one [that switches through windows rather than programs]

I removed all those, and still nothing, but maybe I forgot one.

And it wasn't keyring issues, it was typing issues. I couldn't TYPE in the keyring box. It was simple password, and I was able to copypaste the letters from the prompt to get it (xD) and it unlocked just fine. But the shell itself never loaded. I only had the desktop.