Unity not starting on two different systems

[Rovanion]

The two different systems are very different. One a Lenovo T61 with an Nvidia card, the other a homebuilt computer with an ATi 6850. After logging in nothing but the mouse appears on the screen. After a while Synergy quits because there is no systray to attach to.

I used the 12.04 alpha and beta on the Desktop and sometime, I'm not sure exactly when since I was using Kubuntu most of the time, the Unity startup stopped working. The very same issue appeared yesterday on my laptop which I upgraded to 12.04 from 11.10.

The most reasonable explanation could be a bad config file on both systems. Though I've run unity --reset with no results.

Here are links to some extra logs taken after a login attempt to Unity.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/950113

http://paste.ubuntu.com/950114

http://paste.ubuntu.com/950117

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: unity 5.10.0-0ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-23.36-generic 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
Date: Fri Apr 27 18:15:53 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64 (20111012)
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-26 (0 days ago)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank your for your bug report, could you add your ~/.xsession-errors after login (use ctrl-alt-f1 and log in there to copy the file if needed)

[Rovanion (rovanion-luckey)]

Here is my .xsession-errors after a failed login:

http://paste.ubuntu.com/950739

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Rovanion, there is a known issue with the new nvidia driver causing these problems. It is discussed in bug 982485.

For ATI however I'm not sure.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The .xsession-errors file shows that compiz was started with the default profile (should be "unity" or "ubuntu"), and that no plugins initialized.

If you don't mind resetting your compiz configuration, please try removing these two directories:
~/.gconf/apps/compiz-1
~/.gconf/apps/compizconfig-1

And then log in again.

[Rovanion (rovanion-luckey)]

I removed the specified directories on the Nvidia laptop with no effect. Will try on the desktop later.

[Rovanion (rovanion-luckey)]

Have now done the same on the ATi stationary computer. No effect.

[Rovanion (rovanion-luckey)]

I found that Unity 3D starts just fine when I log into Gnome Classic with Compiz. Odd thing.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unity because there has been no activity for 60 days.]