Obviously I wasn't going to put up with this problem for 5 months. I now run metacity.
Because it's 5 months ago, I can't actually remember, but I expect it did: $ ps aux | grep unity And got no results. Then I did $ DISPLAY=:0 unity Don't remember about compiz. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of DX Packages, which is subscribed to unity in Ubuntu. Matching subscriptions: dx-packages https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1342024 Title: Unity exits while screen locked Status in Unity: Incomplete Status in unity package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: Sometimes I return to my computer, find the screen locked. When I move the mouse, I see the background image, and my name, but no box the enter a password, and I can't unlock the screen. Switching to another VT, I find that unity isn't running any more. Starting it resolves the problem - i.e. I can then unlock the screen. A crash report isn't generated. I don't know where to find any further information on why unity exits. It doesn't exit unexpectedly under any other circumstances. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/1342024/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages Post to : dx-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~dx-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp