Unity broken after changing few compiz settings, fresh 11.10 install [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Unity doesn't load, no Launcher, no Dash appears

What I did:

In a fresh setup of 11.10, I used compizconfig-settings-manager as explained in this question to change the icon size of the Unity launcher.

What happened:

As soon as I did this, the application froze and the launcher disappeared. I thought, well, maybe Unity crashed, so I logged out with Ctrl-Alt-Del, and logged in again.

Unity still does not appear anymore. I am just left with my desktop background and Nautilus running. I can open a new Nautilus window, and browse my file system, but that's about it.

What works:

I can log into Unity 2D, only the "normal" Unity does not work.

So, how do I get Unity back? Is there any way to reset the configuration, or look for some more detailed error messages?


What I already tried:

  • Starting a Terminal and running unity --reset. It's stuck at "Initializing session options … done", and nothing else happens.
  • Starting a Terminal and running unity --replace. Same as above.
  • From the 2D mode, calling unity --replace or -- reset. It hangs after "Starting unity-window-decorator", and if I abort the process, my keyboard input is disabled.

I'm pretty sure I had the same problem as you.

What I did to fix it was open a Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), type ccsm in the Terminal and then enabled the Ubuntu Unity plugin and it now works again.

  • Warning: What are some of the issues with CCSM and why would I want to avoid it?

I had the same problem but none of the solutions explained here works.

Here is how I solved my Unity launcher problem:

  • Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T
  • Open the compizconfig-settings-manager with this command : ccsm (if it's not installed, use sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager)
  • Click on the category: Desktop
  • Marked Ubuntu Unity Plugin and answer to all the conflict key you may have
  • Unity Launcher is back!