Hi guys, I've run into a very strange problem with a machine with Ubuntu 16.04. Everything has been OK till a few days ago I run the shutdown command in the console, that's when problems started (incidentally it's not the first time that this happens to me, it has happened once already with another machine, different problems though which started exactly after I run the shutdown command).
So everytime I log in now I get the desktop icons and menu disappearing, they kind of flick on and off.
I looked on the net and found some similar problems, apparently it has something to do with the unity plugin?
So I tried this solution
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1738...o-dash-appears
but when in the hard terminal after I run
I keep getting an error – , as if it can't connect to the net, odd.
So, I don't know, any other possible solution?

I wouldn't personally recommend using the shutdown command if you're running a GUI - I would recommend that you shut down the system gracefully through the GUI.

Can you access the internet from the machine in any other way e.g. browser?

so I've run the
command successfully.
I disabled the unity plugin, then reenabled it, no joy
I tried this:
No joy either.
What else could I try? ANy idea?

MIght also be worth noting that now if I want to reboot or shutdown I can't do it through the GUI, if I do that the rebbot/shutdown menu doesn't come up so I have to do it from the terminal. So does anyone have any suggestion as to what to do next?

Hi, newby here,

Sorry I cant help & I've just signed up today to follow this post & wanted to add that I have had the exact same problem for about 10 days.

16.04.3 cant shut down / suspend / log out or anything from the Gui, mine started about a week ago.

Additionally I've got dash icons that disappear when I hover over them or click them, they're gone for 0.5s then reappear, Desktop icons also disappear & reappear at the same time, but the background stays in place

I've done a complete format re-install with a fresh download & exactly the same.

I can however run Linux studio absolutely fine from both USB & when installed on the hard drive so I have hopefully ruled out any hardware failure possibilities.

Fortunately I'm a bit anal about storing my data externally so repeated formating & installing isn't a problem.

Gonna try a copy of 16.04.2 next.

Watching with interest..... 8-)

Hi Again, when a mod approves my first post this should make more sense.

If it doesn't appear for a while then I was having exact same problems

Installed 16.04.2 Stable
Installed updates, same problem

Installed 16.04.3 Stable
Installed updates, same problem

All installs have been of the "Totally wipe the drive" type

Now onto installing updates 1 by 1 to try and isolate, very worried about any possible damage to my external HD as with the errored version I cant safely eject either :-(

OK I'm there & stable under 17.10 with the newest kernel 4.13.0-25-generic GNU/Linux

I noticed errors & hangs when coming out of the installs to re-start, warning

[ 6.306657] tpm tpm: A TPM error (7) occurred attempting to read a pcr value
[ 6.434676] tpm tpm: A TPM error (7) occurred attempting to read a pcr value
[ 8.237803] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[ 8.237863] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through

I don't have full admin bios privileges enabled by default & the option to amend the TPM settings only comes on my HP if you do.

Aware that the Spectre / Meltdown attacks can be focused on Cache memory I downloaded updated to the latest kernel & all seems good now.

Have a read of this
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2018/01/...status-update/
This:
https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-3523-1/
& this:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Upgrades

As instructed on the last of those links I didn't run software updates from the GUI (I was worried in case it wasn't looking at the newest kernel) but this time instead from using Alt f2 & the commands as below instructions.
...........................................................................
Desktop

By default, users are notified daily for security updates and weekly for non-security updates. How Ubuntu alerts you as well as configuring your system to install updates automatically can be setup within Update Manager. You can access Update Manager anytime by pressing 'Alt+F2', entering 'update-manager' and pressing Enter. Its settings can be adjusted by pressing the 'Settings' button.

Once Update Manager is open, you can review and select pending updates as well as check for new updates. Simply press the 'Install Updates' button to upgrade the selected packages to the updated version.

...........................................................................

After a lot of digging it appears that the chipset of the laptop I'm working on could be vulnerable to the Spectre & Meltdown attacks so I'm wondering if this could have something to do with it?

I'll downgrade to 16.04 again later & try the same for confirmation.

Good luck.

I was hoping to sort this out without having to reinstall etc, so I'll keep looking online and trying different things, hopefully I'll get there. I'll keep this thread updated. In my case, as I've mentioned earlier on I think, it seems to have something to do with the fact that I've used the shutdown command rather than the GUI (that's when the problem started rather than after an update. Of course it can be a coincidence.)

I'm back to 16.04, was stable "uname -or" reported kernel 4.10.0-28 generic GNU/Linux

Ran the software updater via the GUI now unstable & "uname -or" reports kernel 4.13.0-26 generic GNU/Linux
Flashing icons again, power off not working etc.

Next I ran the "update-manager" comand from alt f2, it reported "The software on this computer is up to date"

Bit more googling & found https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-3522-3/

Which suggests when the update to patch the security holes was released it caused other problems, right about when yours started???

Are auto updates configured on your system?
&
Which version of the kernel are you currently running? uname -or in terminal will show you

I'm now going to re-install 17 & update to get back to a stable environment, let me know how you get on.

Back to 17.10 again now updated with kernel reported as below

> HP-ProBook-6550b:~$ uname -or
> 4.13.0-25-generic GNU/Linux

Had the TPM errors above during install but updates seem to have fixed that, now just to get used to it.....

Right, I fiddle around the whole evening, tried a few more options like playing around with the Unity PLugin, trying some of these solutions in here http://sourcedigit.com/21934-ubuntu-...icons-missing/ but nothing. Eventually I re-installed ubuntu (in fact I downgraded to 14.04 because the laptop is quite old) and the problem seems to have gone away.
I'm a bit disappointed I had to reinstall everything to get around the issue though...