desktop background + icons disappeared after upgrade

[h4nn4h]

Hi everyone,

I upgraded to 9.10 yesterday and it went alright, only now my desktop is entirely black and I can't see the icons on it anymore or right-click to get a context menu. I googled a little and I've seen that other people have had similar problems, but I can't seem to fix it. Can anyone here help?

[oboedad55]

Is this an upgrade from 9.04 or a clean install? I did a clean install of 9.10 today on my laptop and wound up with the same black screen after install. The LiveCD worked fine, of course... This was an Acer Aspire 5672.

[h4nn4h]

I upgraded from 9.04!

[WestCity]

I didn't upgraded by myself, but have heared that ASUS K50IJ + 9.10 = black screen also. :( I'll better wait until they fix this bug...

[h4nn4h]

Alright, now I did a fresh install from the Karmic Koala cd, and the problem remains (though not on the live cd). Did anyone find a solution yet?

[oboedad55]

Is it safe to assume you have the released version and not the beta? Sorry for the stupid question, but I thought I should ask. I had problems with the beta but none with the released version on one clean install and one upgrade, the latter being the heretofore-mentioned Acer laptop.

[h4nn4h]

Yes, at first I had this problem with the release candidate, but I did a fresh install from the newest version (with a cd freshly downloaded from ubuntu.com) yesterday, and it's still the same.
I discovered it disappears when I turn compiz off, though. So I'm going without awn and the like for now, but I hope this is just a bug and doesn't mean my computer can't manage both a none-black desktop AND compiz?

[idr]

I did an upgrade install yesterday (31st Oct 2009)to 9.10 Karmic Koala and have exactly the same problem. Is there a solution? I've searched but other threads are closed without a solution being suggested! Any ideas...Please?

[kea~]

same problem here. did an upgrade - fails. did a clean install - fails.
and there's one more problem I'm facing, no, two - first, on 9.04 I was using serbian keyboard layout, latin by default, and now it switches to cyrillic serbain, hell annoying, not even reset by default button will help, and second, when i log out and then try to log in again, chose the user, type my password, it won't log in. like I did nothing.
I've heard people who tested beta saying karmic koala might be the best ubuntu ever, but if these bugs and glitches remain, I won't be able to agree for much longer.

[kea~]

oh, and no sound.

[ajgreeny]

I will not be surprised to hear that you have an ati graphics card, using the radeon open source driver which seems to be a big problem at the moment, though worked very well in 9.04.

Have a look at:-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8199471#post8199471
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305306
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1304961
and you may get some more help. As you say, you can stop using compiz, which is a shame, do a workaround with the driver which also has some other problems, or you can run in 16 bit colour, which appears to overcome the problem.

Let's hope this is sorted soon with an update.

[idr]

Thanks aj. Yes ATI graphics card! Changed to 16-bit colour as suggested and my desktop background and icons are back with extra visual effects set.

I'll be looking out for an update too.

[MScapee]

I get the black screen too when running under the live CD although in my case it seems to be related to the monitor resolution. In my preferred resolution, (1280x1024) the screen background is black. If I switch to (ugh) 1024x768 then the display is ok. No upgrade to 9.10 for me until this is fixed... :cry:

[ron_digital]

oh, and no sound.
I solve my disappearing icon problem this way: System > Preferences > Appearence goto the tab Interface and under Menus and Toolbar and checked the box Show icons in menus.