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Running Ubuntu 12.04, I installed gnome-shell (GNOME 3) and used it for some days with no problem. Yesterday, I broke it following this sequence of events:

  • I played with the accessibility menu in the top panel, launching the keyboard onscreen at one point. Suddenly, everything froze.
  • I tried to use xkill and point the x on this onscreen keyboard, or on the top panel but it did not kill it.
  • I opened TTY1 (Ctrl+Alt+F1), logged in, and restarted the machine.

Since then, my GNOME Shell is broken. I can log in using Unity, but if I log in using GNOME, I only see the wallpaper and the mouse pointer.

Interesting to note:

  • I have reinstalled gnome-shell doing sudo apt-get remove --purge gnome-shell followed by sudo apt-get install gnome-shell several times, but it doesn't change anything.

  • I can log in under GNOME Shell perfectly if I use another account (be it guest or a newly created one).

  • I tried to follow the steps in The Definitive Guide to Getting Your Linux Desktop Back until the step "Try to reinstall the window manager".
    I understand that the window manager associated to Gnome is mutter. I tried to purge it (in order to reinstall it), but the terminal says Package mutter is not installed, so not removed. However, if I do man mutter, I can read the manual. Furthermore, I can run gnome-shell on the guest session and I checked that it uses mutter by using wmctrl -m. So I don't understand how should I proceed to purge and reinstall it.

Any help would be great!

BeastOfCaerbannog
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  • Having same problem with Cinnamon. Also posted a question here and there. No solutions yet, just a workaround (replacing the user). I'm interested whether your issue will attract more potential answerers. – Byte Commander Jan 22 '15 at 19:31

2 Answers2

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First, it sounds like you've made some valiant attempts to correct the problem. Kudos.

Perhaps try the command:

dconf reset -f /org/gnome/
dconf reset -f /org/gnome/settings-daemon/
dconf reset -f /org/gnome/desktop/

If those don't work, and you're desperate, you can try this:

dconf reset -f /org/gnome/

And that will reset all GNOME application dconf keys to their defaults.

I can't guarantee that this will work, but it will reset GNOME settings to their defaults.

j1mc
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I resolved to follow the instructions given at: How do I reset GNOME to the defaults? to reset Gnome 3 to its initial state. It brought everything back in order (although I'm curious of which specific configuration was responsible).

Community
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