One user has a desktop problem after upgrade

[Naushika]

Hi,

After I upgraded from 12.04 to 14.04, another user of the computer has a problem with her desktop. After login, the panel does not show up, start menu items appear on mouseover and vanish again, and if you start any programs the windows are garbled, look fragmented and don't get redrawn properly. Only one of us three users has this problem but deleting her .kde directory didn't help. Are there other user-specific settings that can mess up the desktop or window manager?

Thanks

Heli

[SteveRiley]

Try deleting and recreating the entire account.

[NickStone]

And if that doesn't work install 14.04 from scratch making sure you backup all your stuff first.

[claydoh]

And if that doesn't work install 14.04 from scratch making sure you backup all your stuff first.

Um, ok.....a little overboard but it'll do the trick, I guess
Since the problem is specific to one user account on the system, it likely won't get to that point anyway.

[DoYouKubuntu]

And if that doesn't work install 14.04 from scratch making sure you backup all your stuff first.

This isn't windows.

To the OP, create a new dummy user account. Don't copy ANYTHING from any other user. Just use the stock, default settings for a new account. Now log in with the new account. Is the problem still there? If not [and it shouldn't be], you can now decide whether to continue troubleshooting the real user's account for the problem file(s), or you can do a little *nix magic and make the new account the real user's account. I'd do the latter, but if you're not comfortable with a little hand-editing of system files, along with changing ownership, etc., this may not be for you.

[Naushika]

Try deleting and recreating the entire account.

I did this and it didn't help. I'm completely baffled. I noticed the guest account is similarly broken, but two other accounts are working fine. I guess I need to reinstall since I can't even figure out where to look for the problem.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I did this and it didn't help. I'm completely baffled. I noticed the guest account is similarly broken, but two other accounts are working fine. I guess I need to reinstall since I can't even figure out where to look for the problem.

You can reinstall if you want. I've gotten to a point now where if I have a brand-new installation and something's screwed up, it's easier to just reinstall than troubleshoot. But since you upgraded from 12.04 to 14.04, I'm guessing that this is an established installation. Of course you can back everything up, including the /home directories for each user--but if the problem lies in some configuration file(s) in $HOME, you're just going to reintroduce it once you reinstall and then restore everything from backup.

Speaking of backups...do you have backups of /home from before the upgrade? If so, voila!, copy them back.

Since you have some good user accounts, another approach would be to copy their /home directories over to the bad accounts. Then you'll have to change ownership and permissions, etc., to reflect their correct users, and restore any additional stuff (user-saved data, etc.), but it might be worth a try.