Only wallpaper showing after upgrading from 22.04 to 24.04

I updated Ubuntu Mate from 22.04 to 24.04.2 on my Thinkpad X240 laptop. As far as I can tell, there were no problems during the upgrade. The login screen looks fine, and if I log in, a normal looking Firefox window opens (to alert me that I am not logged into Dropbox).

However, apart from that, I don't see anything except for a screen that looks like the background wallpaper. I can only open a terminal via CTRL + ALT + F2.

What's wrong here and what can I do?

Hi Sebastian,

When you see that wallpaper, are you able to open a terminal window with CtrlAltT?

1 Like

I'd suggest to launch mate-tweak in terminal and try to change panel layouts, windows manager settings, etc.

1 Like

No, nothing happens when I try

When I try mate-tweak, I get a error message:
Error: unable to open display
... and then some problem in GdkX11.X11Screen.get_window_manager

Oh, my fault... ctrl-alt-f2 is text terminal! Then, what about executing startx?

Error message: "Could not acquire name on session bus"

A number of people here suffered somewhat similar problems which were resolved when they replaced newly installed arctica greeter withslick greeter

and some of them solved their problems by disabling picom

3 Likes

Thanks. There, one solution seems to be to "Going to Startup Applications, try disabling 'picom' (unchecking worked).", but how can I get there if all I can get is a text terminal?

Side question: Can I safely try to just switch to gnome via Ubuntu 22.04 Mate switch to Gnome - Ask Ubuntu?

Startup applications can be controlled using terminal like that

Sorry, I've never tried anything like that.

1 Like

Ok, thanks, that solved it... (I added "Hidden=true" to /etc/xdg/autostart/picom.desktop.

3 Likes

If the problem is solved then could you mark the solution, please?

Hi, @auditorofreality

You wrote (in reply to @ugnvs ):

That's great :slight_smile: Can I suggest that you now run the "Software Updater" in your "Ubuntu MATE 24.04"? I'm suggesting that because I fear that you may then find / get a "Partial Upgrade" window like the following screenshot and, IF that's the case, you should then click the "Partial Upgrade" button in that window and let it complete the partial upgrade:

2 Likes