Lost access to the unity interface how to fix?

Solution 1:

This seemed fixed once I went to terminal (ctrl+alt+F1) and pressed:

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz-1
gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compizconfig-1
rm ~/.compiz-1/session/*
rm ~/.config/compiz-1/compizconfig/config
unity --reset

source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1866462

Solution 2:

You can try to reset unity settings with unity --replace and if fails try unity --reset If all those fails and you still cannot get to CCSM then reinstall it with commands: if you don't want to remove setting substitute purge with remove in command below

sudo apt-get purge compizconfig-settings-manager
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Disclaimer: Iam not sure the link Iam about to post is still applicable as thread dates to 2008. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=799070

UPDATE It seems as if you are not yet logged in GUI, and so there is no XServer running yet. Try in failsafe mode (recovery mode) and fix things from there