Xubuntu useless after reboot

[Kevin O'Gorman]

On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Kevin O'Gorman <kogorman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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

I meant to continue ---  I expect I'll have to go through the dotfiles
one at a time to figure out what's wrong.

--
Kevin O'Gorman

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