UI elements become completely unresponsive

Solution 1:

I would consider doing a memtest and maybe a badblocks scan on your drive. The processor and memory are what draw your desktop or GUI items. Therefore I'd rule those out before we start pionting fingers at your desktop managers. Since both Gnome and Unity are acting up I find hardware a much more likely factor.

Sorry for posting an answer, but I do not have the ability to post comments yet.

Anyway, there is a memtest86+ test on any Ubuntu install cd or usb drive. I'd go with that first.

Edit:

Seems like migrating to a new user account would be the best test as of right now. Something could just be corrupt from install and reverting when you delete the new user, I don't really know. But you can try this:

usermod -m -d /home/jerry -l jerry tom
### gone ###
ls /home/tom
### as it moved to ###
ls /home/jerry

This command gets rid of the user "tom" and moves everything to the user "jerry". The ls commands are just to double check your work, listing the new available directory, and the first one should give you an error as it no longer exists.

source: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/ubuntu-linux-howto-rename-user-account/

Hopefully if you move everything from your current account to a new one, you can have just one account without all the problems.

Solution 2:

You could also have tried to use unity --reset. You can probably still try it if that works.

• How do I reset my Unity configuration?