Installer upgrade causes desktop to not appear upon login

[Nicholas Skaggs]

Used today's daily image of raring (2013-02-25) to upgrade a working install of quantal to raring. Install completed, but upon reboot the desktop did not appear after login (Meaning, no launcher, no dash, no indicators. Nautilus loads, as the desktop wallpaper is shown)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: ubiquity (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-7.15-generic 3.8.0
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-7-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.8-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Feb 25 14:06:01 2013
InstallCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-02-25 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Alpha amd64 (20130225)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Jackson Doak (noskcaj)]

i know a similar thing arises using fglrx drivers for a hd 4000 series GPU, so this could be a graphics driver. (i haven't read any logs, just a guess.

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

i suspect nvidia driver here, or something funny in the apt upgrade. I'll read the logs when I return.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1132940

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

It looks like a large number of packages were not installed:

Feb 25 18:24:40 ubuntu ubiquity: /target/
Feb 25 18:24:42 ubuntu ubiquity: WARNING:root:can't add gir1.2-pango-1.0 (E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.)
Feb 25 18:24:42 ubuntu ubiquity: WARNING:root:can't add gir1.2-peas-1.0 (E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.)
Feb 25 18:24:42 ubuntu ubiquity: WARNING:root:can't add gir1.2-rb-3.0 (E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.)
Feb 25 18:24:42 ubuntu ubiquity: WARNING:root:can't add gir1.2-signon-1.0 (E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.)
...

and the list goes on.

[Nicholas Skaggs (nskaggs)]

Thanks Brian -- I did this right before I went offline for a week :-) So I haven't had a chance to look into it. The box is still in the same state -- I wonder if it was simply an archive issue at the time.. I'll have a look as well.