Main menu of many applications is gone

[teo1978]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open any of these applications: gedit, terminal, filezilla, gimp, nautilus
2. Make sure its window has focus
3. Move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen

Expected:
All of the abovementioned applications have a main menu that usually would appear in the bar at the top of the screen when you move the cursor there.

Observed:
Since today, the menu is gone. The name of the application, or title of the window (e.g. "Files" for nautilus), or nothing at all, shows up instead.

This makes ALL THESE APPLICATIONS COMPLETELY UNUSABLE, as you can't access their main menu which most of them don't have anywhere else.

This is a critical issue that has practically bricked my computer, as I can now only use a handful of applications that for some reason are not affected, like Google Chrome, TortoiseHG and a few more.

It seems extremely unlikely that all these unrelated programs suddenly have this new bizarre bug, so it must be of some system component. Not sure it's really compiz, I have no idea, whether it's compiz, Unity, Xorg or something else.

It is URGENT that an update fixing this disaster is released immediately.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: compiz 1:0.9.12.3+16.04.20180221-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-148.174-generic 4.4.177
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-148-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia
.proc.driver.nvidia.gpus.0000.01.00.0: Error: [Errno 21] Is a directory: '/proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0000:01:00.0'
.proc.driver.nvidia.registry: Binary: ""
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 340.107 Thu May 24 21:54:01 PDT 2018
 GCC version: gcc version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.11)
.tmp.unity_support_test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.18
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: compiz
CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri May 31 20:42:38 2019
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: xenial
DistroVariant: ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [1025:0647]
 NVIDIA Corporation GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] [10de:1140] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] GeForce 710M [1025:0691]
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.compiz.core' b'outputs' b"['1920x1080+0+0']"
 b'org.compiz.core' b'active-plugins' b"['core', 'composite', 'opengl', 'move', 'compiztoolbox', 'regex', 'workarounds', 'vpswitch', 'resize', 'snap', 'place', 'mousepoll', 'imgpng', 'expo', 'session', 'scale', 'unityshell']"
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-11 (2058 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
MachineType: Acer Aspire V3-571G
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-148-generic root=UUID=5830b30e-69e8-4bb4-8a2b-bc2b43c7414a ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: compiz
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 10/15/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: Acer
dmi.bios.version: V2.07
dmi.board.asset.tag: Type2 - Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: VA50_HC_CR
dmi.board.vendor: Acer
dmi.board.version: Type2 - Board Version
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Acer
dmi.chassis.version: V2.07
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAcer:bvrV2.07:bd10/15/2012:svnAcer:pnAspireV3-571G:pvrV2.07:rvnAcer:rnVA50_HC_CR:rvrType2-BoardVersion:cvnAcer:ct10:cvrV2.07:
dmi.product.name: Aspire V3-571G
dmi.product.version: V2.07
dmi.sys.vendor: Acer
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.12.3+16.04.20180221-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.91-2~16.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~16.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~16.04.1
version.nvidia-graphics-drivers: nvidia-graphics-drivers-* N/A
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.18.4-0ubuntu0.8
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.10.1-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.7.0-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20160325-1ubuntu1.2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.12-1build2
xserver.bootTime: Fri May 31 17:05:04 2019
xserver.configfile: /etc/X11/xorg.conf
xserver.errors:
 NVIDIA(0): Failed to initiate mode change.
 NVIDIA(0): Failed to complete mode change
xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.version: 2:1.18.4-0ubuntu0.8

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

Hi, Perhaps you could edit the summary of this bug and tone it down a bit and remove the unnecessary expletives.

https://www.ubuntu.com/community/code-of-conduct

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

I've at least gone and removed the offensive parts of the description. I can't say the tone is necessarily calm, but I wouldn't say it particularly violates the CoC. I can imagine being a bit frustrated over the situation.

[Colin Law (colin-law)]

If you logon as a different user do you still see the problem?

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

I note you're using 16.04 which was upgraded from a previous install. Sometimes over time, packages can go missing, typically accidentally removed. One way you can make sure your system is up to date with the latest packages, and any missing ones are installed, is with the following commands. I'd recommend running them in a terminal, one after the other then restart the system and see if the issue still manifests itself.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop^
sudo apt dist-upgrade

Note the second line has a ^ on the end, this is intentional, and may help to re-instate any missing packages. Hope that helps. Let us know.

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

The good news is, after rebooting, the issue is gone.
So this is probably one of the many things in Ubuntu that randomly and sporadically begin to fail, perhaps because of some service or program crashing or whatever, that get "fixed" at the next reboot. I wish I knew a less aggressive way to get this "fixed" than rebooting the next time it happens.

> I note you're using 16.04 which was upgraded from a previous install

Yep, which in turn was upgraded from a previous install and so on over the years (I think it might go back to 12.x... no, that can't be right, I dunnow...). I certainly don't fresh-install the whole OS every time a new major release comes out. Actually I wonder why we still even have to deal with major releases and distribution upgrades, and can't just keep the OS up to date continuously with regular updates. It seems to me such an obsolete design. I know there are distros out there that have that, but I don't think there's any that is mature and works well.

And by the way, I'm stuck with 16.04 and don't upgrade mainly because of #1164016, which would make my life absolutely miserable (luckily I learned that regressed before I actually upgraded).

But anyway, I'm rambling.

Something that would be useful in order to get this issue diagnosed is this: does anybody know if there's a particular process, service or something that, by crashing, would cause this issue, i.e. the top menus to disappear for some applications? Particularly, that would affect gedit, nautilus, filezilla, terminal, gimp among others, but NOT chrome, tortoiseHG (also among others). Knowing that might help narrowing this down, and also might give us a workaround hopefully better than a reboot for when this happens.

I remember that restarting gnome-settings-daemon (by killing it, it restarts itself), which I sporadically have to do because of #1188569, systematically causes many things in Nautilus to go berserk, INCLUDING the top menu to disappear. But that would always get fixed by restarting nautilus (after closing any instance of it including the one that's responsible for the desktop), while in this case it didn't.

Another thing that might help: this likely happened after resuming from hibernation (resuming from hibernation is an agony every single time, it randomly triggers countless bugs, including the abovementioned 1188569, and sometimes forces me to physically power off the computer as the only way out).

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

I would still appreciate it if you ran the commands I said and paste the output here. That can fix a multitude of random issues.

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

> I would still appreciate it if you ran the commands
> I said and paste the output here. That can fix a multitude of random issues.

Something is seriously wrong in Ubuntu if "a multitude of random issues" can spontaneously appear and if I need to run those commands to fix them.
I would expect random issues to not appear in the first place, and if they do, I would expect the Update Manager (the one that pops up every once in a while alerting me of new updates to install) to detect them, give me a warning, and offer me to run those commands for me.

Now, those sound scary, so I'll do some research before I do that. Thanks.

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

I didn't say the multitude of random issues "spontaneously appear".

My point is that the desktop is tested as a set of packages delivered together. There are dependencies, and expectations. It's not uncommon for users to run commands to install or remove software from their system which they copy/pasted from a blog or other guide. Sometimes these guides suggest doing things which can end up removing core packages from the system. The command will have alerted the user, but the user may not understand the implications. I noted that your system is old, having been installed from a 13.04 ISO. There's the very real possibility that something you did in the 6 years since then as inadvertently removed a package which the desktop needs for normal operation. It's also possible that this hasn't happened. The commands I gave will simply install the 'ubuntu-desktop' "task" which will in turn make sure all the expected dependencies are installed. Nothing more. It may actually do nothing at all, if they're all there. Or it might. It's just a handy one-liner that I've used many times to 'reset' things back to a working state.