I have the same problem as described here.
I tried almost all the solutions described on that post:
export DISPLAY=:0
ccsm
(when switching to graphic - nothing's there).
or
export DISPLAY=:0
sudo dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
and then setsid unity
or unity --reset-icons &disown
.
I tried reinstalling unity
and ubuntu-desktop
.
I also tried removing: rm -rf ~/.compiz-1 ~/.config/compiz-1
and rm .Xauthority
.
None of these helped. Still having the same blank desktop with no icons/bar.
I am using VirtualBox Version 5.0.24 r108355. Ubuntu 15.10.