Xubuntu useless after reboot

Kevin O'Gorman kogorman at gmail.com
Mon Jun 24 21:34:18 UTC 2013


On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Lou Katz <ubuntu at metron.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 08:08:36AM -0700, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>> On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 1:36 AM, Kevin O'Gorman <kogorman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 1:19 AM, Kevin O'Gorman <kogorman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> We had a large power outage in this part of California, and I had to
>> >> shut down my desktop as the UPS became drained.  All seemed normal.
>> >>
>> >> Power is restored, but it's far from normal.
>> >>
>> >> The workspace switcher that had 10 workspaces now has 1, but the
>> >> controls say it has 10.
>> >>
>> >> Most windows do not have the usual decorations: minimize, go away and
>> >> so on.  My Tomboy notes do have the decorations, but they are inactive
>> >> on some of the notes.  But not all of them.
>> >>
>> >> Terminal windows refuse to take the focus, so I don't have a command
>> >> line under X (Ctl-alt-f1 works okay).  None of my X windows respond to
>> >> the keyboard, although it works fine at login and at the console
>> >> windows.
>> >>
>> >> The system is pretty much useless in this state.  I had to enter this
>> >> message from mt laptop.   I'd sure appreciate some help.

>> > It gets more and more weird.  Chrome browser windows *do* have
>> > maximize, minimize and close boxes, but it only responds to the close
>> > box.  I can type at appropriate places in gmail in that browser.
>> > Firefox refuses focus so I cannot type, but it responds to some mouse
>> > clicks.
>> >
>> > What seems oddest to me is that chrome on the afflicted machine runs
>> > gmail, but gmail there seems to have lost the contact list.  I'm using
>> > Chrome on the laptop and when I type "u" in an address, it
>> > auto-completes to this list.  The now-afflicted desktop used to do the
>> > same, but no longer.
>> >

>> Things are slightly less dire than I thought at first.  There is only
>> one usable account on the machine, but I wondered if I was looking at
>> problems in user settings.  So I created a second account, and viola!
>> I can type, and I have a workable workspace switcher.
>>
>> I seldom have to fool with all this configuration stuff, and have no
>> expertise.  I wonder if I'm going to have to switch over to the new
>> account completely, or if there's any hope of isolating the problem.
>>

>
> I had a similar problem. I use xfce4. It turned out that all the panels were
> 'lost'. I finally discovered that when I restored tham, all were fine.
>
> Try right clicking on the desktop and in a terminal window type:
>         xfce4-panel&
> for the xfce4 desktop. There are probably equivalents for Gnome, KDE, etc.
>
>
> You could also try ctrl-alt-F1 to get a console login to see what is
> going on.
>
>

I also use xfce4, so I hoped your solution would work for me.  No such luck.

Right-click desktop, start a terminal: if Firefox is still present,
the new terminal window does NOT get focus, and I cannot type into it.
 So I ditched FF and retried.  It says "There is already a running
instance" and quits.

I guess your problem and mine were different.

I expect I'll have to go


--
Kevin O'Gorman

programmer, n. an organism that transmutes caffeine into software.
Please consider the environment before printing this email.




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