Unity desktop will not show until network connection established

[ellen-price]

Since I upgraded to Ubuntu 13.10, I've noticed that my desktop sometimes takes a long time to appear; sometimes, I only get the Unity sidebar but no desktop background or icons. I thought this was random until today, when I figured out that this only happens when my computer thinks it's connected to the Internet but isn't (like when my router needs to be reset). As soon as I disconnect the Ethernet cable or connect to a different Wi-Fi network -- whatever is needed to establish a valid network connection -- the desktop appears within ~30 seconds.

I haven't been able to find a similar problem reported in the forums, and I'd like to know what causes this and if it can be fixed.

[varunendra]

Welcome to the forums ellen-price. :)

I'm not sure about the reason, but for a fix, have you tried disabling "Connect Automatically" option in Network Manager for the existing connections?