How to Reset Unity and Compiz Settings in Ubuntu

If you keep experimenting with your Ubuntu system you might end up with a messed up Unity and Compiz settings. In this quick tip, we shall see how to reset Unity and Compiz settings in Ubuntu 14.04. In fact it is all about running a couple of commands.

This is an old article written for Ubuntu 14.04. The steps may or may not work for Ubuntu 16.04 but it will definitely not work for Ubuntu 18.04.

Reset Unity and Compiz settings in Ubuntu

First of all, install dconf-tools using the following command in terminal (Ctl+Alt+T):

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Then use the following command to reset compiz:

dconf reset -f /org/compiz/

When you have reset compiz, restart Unity:

setsid unity

Optionally, if you want to reset Unity to the default launcher icons, try the command below:

unity --reset-icons

Possible troubleshoot:

If you encounter an error like this while resetting the compiz:

error: GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._g_2dfile_2derror_2dquark.Code17: Cannot open dconf database: invalid gvdb header

The possible reason is that user file has messed up. Make a back up of dconf config and remove the config file:

mv ~/.config/dconf/ ~/.config/dconf.bak

I hope this quick tip helped you to reset Unity and compiz in Ubuntu. Any questions or suggestions are always welcomed.