Compiz disappeared, games won't start... where do I start?

Support & Help Requests
#1

I don’t know what happened. Like, I can’t pinpoint and say “I installed updates” or “I installed new software”… everything was fine yesterday, and today I noticed problems.

  1. Compiz went away. It’s no longer an option in the Tweak dropdown. I noticed this because I noticed I didn’t have a window manager anymore - no titlebars, everything starting at top-left (annoyingly underneath my taskbar at the top!).

  2. The first problem I noticed before the above was that Minecraft no longer runs. I’ve installed Voxelands as another test, and it also crashes.

But instead of posting error messages — let me ask a more general question: Where the heck do I start troubleshooting something like this. Is there something I can do to basically scan the whole system for problems?

From my Windows days, I know it’s probably not so easy as that. But is there a guide out there on how to figure out what the problem might be? I’d rather learn how to try and fix this myself rather than make others work to try and solve my problem.

If that effort fails, then I can start posting some error messages and spec and such. :slight_smile: But I thought I’d try this approach first. :slight_smile:

#2

Hi…

you can reset compiz from mate tweak or the terminal.
for games i would check graphic card drivers there was a Nvidia driver patch two days ago. (if you have nvidia card it can be the cause if you didn’t rebooted the PC)

for start this is what i would do.

#3

If you still have Tidla’s keyboard shortcut set by default, you can press F12 for your “Get Out of Jail Free” terminal.

There’s also the console (tty) from CTRL+ALT+F1 → CTRL+ALT+F6 specifying env DISPLAY=:0 to run commands for the graphical session if Tilda is unavailable or you cannot focus on your desktop.

Typing the affected program (compiz) into a terminal will output verbose details and any errors, as a starting point. Or in your case, typing marco to provide a temporary window manager. :smile:

It sounds like the graphics drivers just suddenly broke, I’ll hint you towards the reinstallation/reconfiguration route, that’s what I’d do first. :point_right:

#4

There is the wiki.

http://wiki.compiz.org/Troubleshooting