14.04LTS:After most recent upd's, Unity desktop got trashed & GUI won't stay up

[stevecro2]

(SORRY, I may have posted this in the wrong thread, have now posted it here and will clear it out of "General Help" in a day or two if no replies there)

On my 14.04 LTS which has gotten all updates until now: After most recent updates Monday (5/18) night, on boot-up, Unity desktop is now trashed. Buttons at left are all multi-color "static" or "snow" and are unreadable. Either no, or almost no, wallpaper (only at top of screen or just some patches of it come up here and there). Controls in upper right corner don't work either. Knowing what the buttons are on the left from memory, I can sometimes force up GKrellm or Chrome. After being up for a few minutes, the whole desktop graphical display goes dark (crashes?) and have to reboot. Can sometimes reboot with Ctrl-Alt-SysRq-R-E-I-S-U-B, sometimes have to hold power button.

*Can* boot up into text "recovery" mode but not sure if there's anything I can do to help from there.

Trying full boot from an older kernel in the GRUB list doesn't help either. First time this has happened. Weeks or months ago, expanded my partition, so I know there is plenty of space.


Is there a way I can run a repair for the window manager/desktop from the text mode, or is there a way that I can find and back out the update from Monday night that I think probably caused this? THANKS IN ADVANCE!

[CantankRus]

As a start you can install the flashback session and at the greeter try the metacity session.
At the greeter hit ctrl+alt+F1
Login and run...

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback
then

sudo reboot

[stevecro2]

By the "greeter" do you mean the graphical login screen? Do Ctrl-Alt-F1 from there?

[stevecro2]

Is this going in from the text recovery mode choice from the GRUB menu?

[stevecro2]

After finding my way into the Ctrl-Alt-F1 console and doing the install for gnome-session-flashback, got notice that it was already the newest version and that it was set to "manually installed", along with an invitation to do an "apt-get autoremove" to remove some things that it listed as no longer required. (I figured I could do this later/someday.) Did the reboot, found the little circular icon that does the drop-down with the different session choices, and took the gnome flashback metacity. Everything came up and has stayed up for a while now. THANKS! I'll need to look again to see all the session choices that were available, but I like this one, and I remember working in Gnome in Ubuntu a few years ago, anyway. Is "flashback" some kind of recovery mode? I'll see if this keeps coming up by default and will probably just stick with it. Your help is appreciated! S

[CantankRus]

After finding my way into the Ctrl-Alt-F1 console and doing the install for gnome-session-flashback, got notice that it was already the newest version and that it was set to "manually installed", along with an invitation to do an "apt-get autoremove" to remove some things that it listed as no longer required. (I figured I could do this later/someday.) Did the reboot, found the little circular icon that does the drop-down with the different session choices, and took the gnome flashback metacity. Everything came up and has stayed up for a while now. THANKS! I'll need to look again to see all the session choices that were available, but I like this one, and I remember working in Gnome in Ubuntu a few years ago, anyway. Is "flashback" some kind of recovery mode? I'll see if this keeps coming up by default and will probably just stick with it. Your help is appreciated! S
The flashback session is for those who can't run unity due to gfx card/driver or just prefer the old 2 panel setup.
It's also a handy recovery session when compiz/unity stuffs up.
gnome-session-flashback installs 2 sessions.

Compiz is the window manager.(Uses same window manager as Ubuntu but the unity plugin is disabled)
Metacity is the window manager. (no 3d graphics needed)



From the "Flashback (Metacity)" session you can
run an update and check for errors...

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

If all looked OK with updates, try to set compiz/unity back to default and then logout and try the "Ubuntu" session again.

dconf reset -f /org/compiz/

If still not displaying properly may need to look at your graphics.
inxi is a good tool for displaying this info.

sudo apt-get install inxi

Then in terminal run...

inxi -b
and copy and paste your output to here.
eg

glen@Trusty:~$ inxi -b
System: Host: Trusty Kernel: 3.16.0-37-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: Unity 7.2.4
Distro: Ubuntu 14.04 trusty
Machine: Mobo: Gigabyte model: GA-78LMT-USB3 v: x.x Bios: Award v: FA date: 04/23/2013
CPU: Quad core AMD FX-4300 (-MCP-) speed/max: 1400/3800 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF116 [GeForce GTX 550 Ti]
Display Server: X.Org 1.16.0 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
Resolution: 1680x1050@59.9hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 550 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 349.16
Network: Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: r8169
Drives: HDD Total Size: 1250.3GB (11.7% used)
Info: Processes: 240 Uptime: 13:35 Memory: 1544.2/3934.9MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.19

[stevecro2]

Thanks for tips. Ran updates in Ctrl-Alt-F1 mode, rebooted, didn't make compiz/unity default yet, tried "Unity (default)" startup from the drop-down, still bad. Rebooted again, decided to do a test: trying all the startups in the drop-down (except KDE, because I already use KDE with another Linux that I have (SuSE) so don't really want to use it with my Ubuntu), found that Metacity works well, plain gnome works OK but doesn't seem to have a very handy/efficient interface, while Ubuntu "default" is obviously still a mess even to look at, and Gnome with Compiz appears OK at first glance but mouse won't work. Seems like choices with Compiz have the common factor that now causes problems.

Installed inxi and ran it:

stevec@stevec-desktop:~$ inxi -bSystem: Host: stevec-desktop Kernel: 3.13.0-52-generic i686 (32 bit) Desktop: Gnome 3.10.4 Distro: Ubuntu 14.04 trusty
Machine: System: Dell product: Dimension E521
Mobo: Dell model: 0UW457 version: A04 Bios: Dell version: 1.1.6 date: 04/07/2007
CPU: Dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (-MCP-) clocked at 1000.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA G72 [GeForce 7300 LE] X.Org: 1.15.1 driver: nvidia Resolution: 1440x900@59.9hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce 7300 LE/PCIe/SSE2/3DNOW! GLX Version: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.125
Network: Card: Broadcom BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX driver: b44
Drives: HDD Total Size: 250.0GB (13.7% used)
Info: Processes: 185 Uptime: 16 min Memory: 778.2/1000.8MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 1.9.17

At this point, I'm just thankful that I can work again with the Metacity, and I will soon want to move on to another project (moving my whole Ubuntu partition to a spot "downstream" on my disc (so that another one of my partitions can grow) and then making sure that my two-level GRUB menu still boots it), but this latest desktop eruption is nonetheless interesting and it would be nice to fix it. (Besides I'm thinking that the next major Ubuntu upgrade that I do (probably 16.04 LTS) might still want to use their suggested desktop.) Thanks again.

[$yl9pAR%t]

The same happened to me on sunday 17.05.2015. I did regular update and I remember there was Compiz update and after reboot no more working Unity. I am afraid we can do nothing about this, just waiting for bug fixes. IMHO the problem is somwhere in between Compiz and nvidia driver. You can try switch off nvidia driver and login to Unity. I was able to use Unity with nouveau driver but of course everything works very slowly with this driver.

My CPU: Athlon 64 3500+
Graphic card: GeForce 6150 with nvidia 304.125 driver

[stevecro2]

I think what I'm wondering now is how to make the Metacity my default (it seems like it's coming up in the drop-down when I log in, but it would be good to know the dconf command). (Sorry to say this, but if the only thing that the Compiz gives me is different ("3d"?) graphics display, then I really liked the old Gnome (that I'm getting with Metacity?) better. It's appearing that the Compiz was giving me something that I wasn't using anyway ;). ) I want to follow along with "trends of progress" in Ubuntu (especially when next major LTS upgrade comes along), but I really could "take it or leave it" with the Unity and be happy either way.

How will we know when they've fixed Compiz/Unity? Thanks again everyone, SC

[CantankRus]

Whatever session you select to log in to at the greeter should remain that way until you change it.
To interact with the panel (add applets etc) in the Flahback Metacity session you need to use alt+Rmouse on the panel to bring up a menu.

PS: With only 1Gb of ram I wouldn't be running unity anyway.

[$yl9pAR%t]

Over six months have passed and this problem still exists, even worse the same happens with Ubuntu 16.04 dev. Should we expect no help on this subject?