Invisible bottom menu, window borders, window buttons

Hello everyone on this forum.

I registered here to post some kind of BUG that happened to me yesterday. I installed zorin OS 8.1 couple of weeks ago and everything was fine until yesterday. I clicked to update my system from the update app, and after reboot my system menus screwed up. Everything in bottom menu is totally white, when the look is set to windows 7 or windows xp style. I cannot see any of the buttons, or menus, or anything.

I took a screenshot of that situation:



This screen is not cut in editor, this white area in the bottom is zorin menu, from the awn, but as you can see is totally white. The same situation is with the xp look, screen is below:



I managed to change the look to gnome by blind typing look-changer in terminal and changing it to gnome2, and now menus are shown, but not the content of some windows, borders of windows and functional buttons of windows.



So the system is not usable at all at this stage. I tried the below command, but it ditn't worked at all.

Code:

sudo apt-get purge avant-window-navigator && sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator

So im stuck with not usable linux system, and writing this form windows 7.

All this screwed up after installing official updates from the update app in zorin os. Tried to update it again, but it says that my stsem is up to date, so packages are not fixed.

Any help will be great.

Try Wolfman's advisory on post-installation:

"...It is important to restart your PC in "Recovery Mode" after installing ... select "Network" (Cable Only!!) and then run "DPKG" and after you have done the updates... , restart your PC with Ctrl + Alt + Del, don't click on "Resume" !!

If the above doesn't work for whatever reason, as soon as you reboot your PC, start Synaptic > Reload > Mark All Upgrades > Apply and then restart your PC again!. (Yes! I know!!)..."

This does not helped at all. Still do not have any of the window borders or menus, some of programs don't have content in it, so the windows are fully white. I think I must go for clean install of ubuntu...

This sounds like a bug to the untrained eye but I could (and possibly I am) completely wrong. However, that a look at this https://answers.launchpad.net/awn/+question/203903

If that answers your problem, then let us know if not then i will see if I can find anything else out for you.

OK, I suspect a graphic card issue - could we rewind a bit please?

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5449

Also, after you installed, did you follow Wolfman's Post-Install guide (which you can download in either .pdf or .doc format?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2054#p34743

It's not related to GPU. There is everything visible when set to gnome2, but some of awn based windows (terminal, all windows borders and funcional buttons like "x") are totally white, without any visible content in them. Bottom menu is also only white, when hovering it with mouse, some of the submenus pops out and they are fully clickable. The thing is some of the core awn funcions are screwed, and those are the issues.

OK, let't try this:

Start with removal of AWN once more:

Code:

sudo apt-get purge avant-window-navigator && sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator

Then:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

to force all necessary updates.

Reboot and see what happens then - if avant-window-navigator does not launch after logging in, Ctrl+ Alt+ T to open a terminal and enter:

Code:

avant-windows-navigator

Then right-click the panel, select 'Dock Preferences' and 'check mark' 'Start AWN automatically' - log out then back in.

Nah, it will not help as I wrote in forst post. I found the solution but its temporary, and not fully functional. I typed in terminal:

Code:

metacity --replace

and the windows borders and terminal went back to normal state, but bottom menu does not look like as it should, and I must to blind write this command everytime my system boost up, so its not very good....

Proof:



Somehow metacity or compiz settings are screwed up, but i set defaults to both, and still having this issue on start.

Any of the devs can look at it?

I am not interested in "guessing" the answer and doing things from post-install guide that I did 10 times or more already.

I think I must find the solution myself...

//Edit:

Or maybe I must replace compiz with metacity, but how to do that safely?

OK, clearly AWN as it is is not working for you, so try this route:

1. Remove AWN completely (you already know the command for this so will not bother to repeat it:

2. Folllow these instructions EXACTLY as given:

http://www.upubuntu.com/2012/03/how-to- ... unity.html

When you get AWN installed this way it might be more stable (it is what I did - I also had some issues and there was a PPA that I had to remove to access the 'awn-applets-all' in synaptic' but I can't remember which - sorry!

You should then also get 'GnoMenu' in addition to 'ZorinMenu' - just remove 'ZorinMenu' applet from the newly installed AWN and replace with 'GnoMenu' - this will then add left Window key functionality to the menu:

Its not awm, its compiz. When I type

Code:

compiz --replace

Windows are back to white, and no window borders anywhere, but then i type

Code:

metacity --replace

And fully see windows and borders as it should be from the beginning..

OK, Compiz is an integral part of the system and things could go belly up if you remove completely - search for Compiz and any other components via Synaptic Package Manager, checkmark them all for reinstallation.