error plugin opengl not loaded when starting unity

[Chris J Arges]

Compiz causes unity to fail because it can't load the opengl plugin. Can we have a way to workaround this to make it easier for users? It seems like doing something akin to 'sudo dconf reset -f /org/compiz' to recover might be a good solution, or figure out why the opengl plugin doesn't load and fix it.

[ test case ]
1) Install desktop normally; have nvidia hardware.
2) Install proprietary drivers, reboot.
3) Uninstall proprietary drivers, reboot.
4) Repeat 2/3 until you log in and you can only see the background.

When switching to a VT and trying to re-run unity I see the message:

compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

[ workaround ]
In the VT do:
sudo dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
then log back in

I can reproduce this in the latest trusty as of Jul 15, 2014.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[mhogerheijde (o-launchpad-hogerheijde-net)]

I think this is related to

#1166765 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/1166765)

The workaround that worked for me was posted in #9 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/1166765/comments/9)

[jerryb (gerald-britton)]

I hit this bug when upgrading to Nvidia driver version 340.32. I noticed this error in Xorg.0.log:

[2307136.707] (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in your X
[2307136.707] (EE) NVIDIA(0): log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X
[2307136.707] (EE) NVIDIA(0): server, and that the module is the NVIDIA GLX module. If
[2307136.707] (EE) NVIDIA(0): you continue to encounter problems, Please try
[2307136.707] (EE) NVIDIA(0): reinstalling the NVIDIA driver.

So, I checked to see *which* glx module *was* being loaded:

[2307131.587] (II) LoadModule: "glx"
[2307131.706] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
[2307133.490] (II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[2307133.490] compiled for 1.15.1, module version = 1.0.0
[2307133.490] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 8.0

That didn't look right, so I went to the directory in the message and found two modules there:

 libglx.so libglx.so.340.32

So, it appears that, when I installed the Nvidia driver, the installer did not rename the glx drivers, so I did:

cd /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/
mv libglx.so libglx.so.xorg
cp libglx.so.340.32 libglx.so

after rebooting, all is well!

[Aaron (armahillo)]

I second #2 comment -- Using this workaround:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/1166765/comments/9

corrected the problem for me. THANK YOU. This has been mindnumbingly frustrating.

[J-Star (janet-godd)]

I have been having this issue any time I try to make changes to Chrome.
Please explain the workaround, I have little experience working with the terminal commands.
Thank you!

[rbhkamal (rbhkamal)]

Holy smokes! Thank you so much jerry b. (Comment #3). I installed the nvidia driver to try to see if it fixes something, then things got f'ed to hell. The only thing that fixes was simply moving these two libraries. Which makes sense. Thanks again. I recommend that this step gets added to the "Reconfigure graphics" in rescue more in ubuntu... because that doesn't do anything right now.