unity crashes when installing application through Software Center

[Matthew House]

When installing a previously purchased software product the desktop freezes and evently unity crashes or the desktop drops to the login screen

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: unity 6.8.0-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
Date: Wed Oct 24 19:49:37 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-19 (4 days ago)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Dropping to the login screen is actually X/Xorg crashing. Not Unity. But regardless...

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, your crash report is either missing or challenging to deal with as a ".crash" file. Please follow these instructions to have apport report a new bug about your crash that can be dealt with by the automatic retracer.

If you are running the Ubuntu Stable Release you might need to enable apport in /etc/default/apport and restart.

Now open your file manager, navigate to your /var/crash directory and open the crash report you wish to submit.
If this fails you will have to open a terminal and file your report with 'ubuntu-bug /var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash' where _my_crash_report.crash is the crash you would like to report. If you get an error that you aren't allowed to access this report you will have to file it with 'sudo ubuntu-bug /var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash'.

I'm closing this bug report since the process outlined above will automatically open a new bug report which can then dealt with more efficiently. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and understanding.

[Matthew House (matthewhouse2956)]

I have checked there are no crash reports created.... this is getting beyond anoying.... the xserver remains open the mouse moves but the desktop doesn't respond.

[Matthew House (matthewhouse2956)]

Also yes Xorg does crash eventally but 20 min of unity not responding isn't really acceptable

[Matthew House (matthewhouse2956)]

I have attached the output of the software-center using the command softwarecenter &> software-install

[Matthew House (matthewhouse2956)]

For some reason changes to compiz caused the crash, when i restored to defaults by erasing all my session details it worked fine.... the question is what caused the crash???? at least what package

[Artem Baguinski (femistofel)]

I am experiencing this.

I have switch to a console with Ctrl+Alt+F1 and execute unity --replace after installing anything through software center. Icons of newly installed applications don't appear in the launcher, I guess something goes wrong there. I'd be glad to restore to defaults like Matthew did but I don't know how.

[Artem Baguinski (femistofel)]

Update for the sake of people experiencing the same: I made the problem go away with `rm -rf ~/.compiz`.

[Heinrich Kruger (heindsight-deactivatedaccount)]

Deleting ~/.compiz doesn't actually seem to help much. Unity still crashes every time I install an application which adds an icon to the launcher.