14.04 Only desktop background shows, console gives "timer connect/disconnect timeout"

[Stannis_King]

Yesterday everything was working fine. Today I start Ubuntu, but after logging in, only the desktop background shows -- no icons or menus. I can't start the terminal with Ctrl + Alt + T, but when I open the console with Ctrl + Alt + F1, these errors keep popping up every few seconds:
[105.852071] mei_me 0000:00:03.0: timer: connect/disconnect timeout I tried logging with Gnome, but the same thing happens.

EDIT: To anyone who stumbles upon this thread in the future: mei_me errors are unrelated to the other problem. I think the problem was that none of the applications that are supposed to autostart at login were starting. The problem was probably caused by the system not looking at the .desktop files in /etc/xdg/autostart at all. That's where the autostart applications are defined.

Someone over at askubuntu suggested to me to check the output of echo $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS. This provided me with nothing, a blank line. I think this was the problem. For some reason none of $XDG dirs were properly set.

The person at AskUbuntu directed me to this page: http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html. It didn't help me much, because I still had no idea how to define $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS.

After the fresh install of Ubuntu, echo $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS returns this:


/etc/xdg/xdg-ubuntu:/usr/share/upstart/xdg:/etc/xdg

If you're faced with this problem, try to define the $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS to that line. If you find out how to do that, and it solves your problem, post it here for future generations! :)

[Stannis_King]

It seems mei_me is unrelated to the other problem. I can stop the messages with "modprobe -r mei_me", but it doesn't help with anything else.

I've tried starting unity from console. It starts and sometimes, but rarely, it functions enough that I can do some things without problems (the sidebar and desktop files appear, but no menus), but otherwise it's very buggy and slow.

This is the log from running unity from console (I run it with sudo unity, then I switch to desktop and it starts, but it's buggy, so I stop it back in console):


compizconfig - Info: Backend : gsettings
compizconfig - Info: Integration : true
compizconfig - Info: Profile : unity
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:55 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'org.gnome.Shell' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:55 unity.debug.interface DebugDBusInterface.cpp:216 Unable to load entry point in libxpathselect: libxpathselect.so.1.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:55 unity <unknown>:0 Couldn't connect to accessibility bus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-GuO8uIKHKy: Connection refused
ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unityo (appinfo2) <unknown>:0 g_file_monitor_set_rate_limit: assertion 'G_IS_FILE_MONITOR (monitor)' failed
ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unity.launcher.icon.trash TrashLauncherIcon.cpp:66 Could not create file monitor for trash uri: Operation not supported
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'com.canonical.Unity.Launcher' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'com.canonical.Unity.Dash' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unityn_param_values == 4 <unknown>:0 The owner of /home/stanny/.config/ibus/bus is not root!
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 nux.inputmethod.ibus InputMethodIBus.cpp:63 Impossible to connect to connect to ibus
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'org.gnome.SessionManager.EndSessionDialog' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unityo (appinfo2) <unknown>:0 g_dbus_proxy_new_for_bus: assertion 'g_variant_is_object_path (object_path)' failed
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'com.canonical.Unity.Session' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:56 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:579 Can't register object 'org.gnome.ScreenSaver' yet as we don't have a connection, waiting for it...
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unityinit <unknown>:0 failed to commit changes to dconf: Error spawning command line 'dbus-launch --autolaunch=778447ddcfac03e3118fe35c53c14244 --binary-syntax --close-stderr': Child process killed by signal 43


Then thousands of these:


WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unityinit <unknown>:0 failed to commit changes to dconf: Error spawning command line 'dbus-launch --autolaunch=778447ddcfac03e3118fe35c53c14244 --binary-syntax --close-stderr': Child process killed by signal 43


Then this:


ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:524 DBus name lost 'org.gnome.Shell'
ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unity.glib.dbus.server GLibDBusServer.cpp:524 DBus name lost 'com.canonical.Unity'


Then a lot of these, again:


WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unityinit <unknown>:0 failed to commit changes to dconf: Error spawning command line 'dbus-launch --autolaunch=778447ddcfac03e3118fe35c53c14244 --binary-syntax --close-stderr': Child process killed by signal 43


Then this:


WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unity.glib.dbus.proxy GLibDBusProxy.cpp:417 Calling method "CanShutdown" on object path: "/org/gnome/SessionManager" failed: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnkn own: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files
WARN 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unityinit <unknown>:0 failed to commit changes to dconf: Error spawning command line 'dbus-launch --autolaunch=778447ddcfac03e3118fe35c53c14244 --binary-syntax --close-stderr': Child process killed by signal 43
ERROR 2014-09-23 13:30:57 unity.session.gnome GnomeSessionManager.cpp:357 Gnome Session call failed: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnkn own: The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files

Then the "failed to commit changes" warnings continue for the entirety of ~30MB logfile.