no desktop

[Johnathan Bailes]

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 11:52:20 +0000, Simon <admin at thelight.org.uk> wrote:
> When I came onto the computer this morning I found that gnome-panel was
> taking 99% cpu for no apparent reason. I rebooted and the system went
> down and back up successfully. When I log in though, everything loads
> apart from the desktop. It stays the default blue colour instead of
> loading my background image, no icons are displayed, and I cant interact
> with it by right clicking (nothing happens). Im a bit stumped really as
> I cant find any error messages anywhere.
> 

The previous poster has the right idea btw.  Which is unfortunate
because you lose all your settings.  You should really not have to
reboot to resolve this.

I have had this happen to me occasionally, once a year or so since I
have been using gnome for like 5 years on average.

It is usually resolved by logging out (not rebooting) and then doing
the CTRL+ALT+F6

for a terminal login.

Then you do a ps -ef | grep <username>  

Whack all the gnome related processes still running under your name.  

Then you can log back in and everything should be fine.