PDA

View Full Version : Desktop went blank...



w9wi
April 8th, 2014, 02:08 PM
13.04. I rebooted this morning & after logging into the GUI desktop, all I get is the background.

There are no icons, there is no launch strip on the left, there is no status bar on top. Right-clicking on the desktop gives the option of creating a blank document -- no other type of new document is available on the list.

Rebooting again has no effect.

I can open a terminal & navigate there just fine. "top" doesn't show any unusual processes, nor anything using unusual amounts of resources.


What I was doing last...

I'd added a repository for a software-defined radio application. (gqrx) Noticed the update notification icon on the top status bar had lit up -- and was saying some kind of error had happened looking for updates. Removed the repository, didn't help. Rebooted.

I did find a .config/compiz-1/compizconfig/unity.ini file that didn't exist at the time of my last backup about a week ago. Renaming it to .in_ doesn't help.

sudo apt-get update returns no errors or updates.

No apparent errors in Xorg.0.log.

w9wi
April 8th, 2014, 03:35 PM
Solved my own problem, although I'm not sure why it worked...

I reinstalled Unity, (sudo apt-get install unity) then rebooted.


Clue: If I right-click on a desktop document, there's a new option at the top of the menu: Open With MonoDevelop. Mono Development was part of the process for building an alternate software-defined radio application.

(yep, I forgot to mention the critical step... gotta love human memory...)

How that killed Unity I don't know, but it appears that it did.