Comment 14 for bug 78500

The same thing happened to me yesterday. After doing the following steps, my home folder was wiped clean. On my system this is reproduceable every time:

1) Start gnome-control-center (System>Control Centre)

2) Right-click on an icon -it doesn't matter which one, you can choose "SCIM Input Method Setup", for example. On the context menu, select "Remove from Startup Programs".

3) After you've done that, you'll see that you cannot start any new graphical applications -i.e. for example, if you start a new terminal, it won't come up.

4) Logout as usual by pressing the button on the top right corner of the gnome panel. You'll notice the "Restart" and "Shut Down" buttons are missing. Choose "Logout".

5) Log back in and realize in despair that your /home/folder has been wiped clean and you're back to the ubuntu defaults. Bash history, evolution mail, tomboy notes, etc.... all gone.

Regarding my system, it is an x86 (P2), which I've been continuously upgrading (Breezy->Dapper->Edgy->Feisty) since I first started with ubuntu. The way I did the upgrade from Edgy to Feisty was by using the 'update-manager'. Afterwards, I've always kept my system up to date with either upgrading from synaptic or by 'sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade'. The currently installed version of gnome-control-center is 1:2.17.90-0ubuntu1.

Let me know if you require more information, but as I said, at least on my system, this is reproduceable every time.