Unity Launcher reveal does not work

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I have found that if I repeatedly move the cursor to the edge (multiple times in quick succession) the launcher eventually appears. Alternately, if I move the cursor to the edge and then move it up and down along the edge the launcher also appears.

I'm not sure if that helps anyone figure out a fix, but that's the behavior I am seeing and it helps me survive in the mean time.

(I upgraded from 11.10 to 12.04 on a MacBook Pro 7,1.)

Now that I have played with it a bit more, it seems that if I also continue to move the cursor BEYOND the edge (ie, put the cursor to the edge and continue dragging my finger across the trackpad), the launcher appears. It's almost as if it has placed the edge beyond the boundary of the screen.

Ah, I HAVE FOUND A FIX!

In CCSM (CompizConfig Settings Manager), go to Desktop > Ubuntu Unity Plugin > Experimental and change the setting for "Launcher Reveal Pressure." By default, it is set to 20. I changed it to 1 and the launcher reveals now with absolutely no problem!

I hope this fixes it for everyone else.

Thanks Russell, your fix worked for me. I played around with the Reveal Pressure and I found that a value of 5 works well. Having a value of 1 may make it too sensitive, especially if you are trying to click on the window close button in that corner. I think the default value of 20 is way too high and should be changed.

Thamks Rusell. That worked for me :)

Is there some way to get the launcher to retain its auto-hide behavior, as
in 11.10?

On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Christan Adéen
<email address hidden>wrote:

> Thamks Rusell. That worked for me :)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/990639
>
> Title:
> Unity Launcher reveal does not work
>
> Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Setting the Unity Launcher auto-hide feature causes the launcher
> sidebar not to pop-up after the second attempt.
>
> Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
> Release: 12.04
>
> To duplicate:
>
> 1. Set Launcher Behaviour to Auto-Hide the launcher.
>
> (The launcher disapears)
>
> 2. Move the mouse to the left edge of the screen.
>
> (The launcher makes an anemic pop-up attempt, just the shaddow appears
> on the far left edge and disapears after a second).
>
> 3. Type on some window for a few seconds (like entering this bug
> report) and then move the cursor to the far left edge.
>
> (The launcher appears correctly)
>
> 4. Move the cursor off the launcher (the launcher disapears) then move
> the cursor back to the Left edge of the screen again.
>
> (The launcher again makes the anemic pop-ip attempt - no launcher
> appears).
>
> It seems that there is some sort of timing issue. If I dont try to get
> to the launcher for a little while it will pop up. If I try repeatedly
> it does not work,
>
> The behaviour must be that the launcher does not fail to pop-up
> whenever the cursor moves to the left edge.
>
> The behaviour should be (suggestion) that the launcher does not fail
> to pop-up whenever the cursor moves to the left edge and sits there
> for a time out period (1 second) and the focussed window is maximized,
> in order to stop the launcher popping up when the intent is to select
> something on the left of the window and the cursor unintentionally
> brushes the left edge.
>
>
> (Note to QA Management): With the focus on quality, how did a bug like
> this get to release? Just curious, keep up the good work.
>
> (Note to Ubuntu / Canonical team): FANTASTIC WORK! I love what you do!
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/990639/+subscriptions
>

--
Carlos M. De Matos
<email address hidden>

I have this bug too, except I never get ANY response from the launcher at all; no shadows, no half-hearted attemps after wiggling near the edge, nothing.

Russell's fix in comment #4 has no effect for me.

One possible difference is that I'm running as a guest in a Virtualbox VM.

Thanks Rusell. That worked for me too :D

Thanks Russell,

CCSM - experimental - Reveal Pressure 5

This is not a bug it's a feature... it really is this time.

Thanks Russell that worked for me! That was really starting to annoy me too :p

I have the same issue in Unity 2d, but the ccsm trick doesn't work here

As Jorenko says in comment #8, Russel's fix from comment #4 does not work when running Ubuntu as a guest in VirtualBox. Just can not use auto-hide in that case which is a bummer on a small screen.

+1 for Russell's fix!

"Launcher Reveal Pressure" set to 12 works great for me.

Re: my comment #13 above, I just discovered that there is a specific bug for this issue when it occurs in VirtualBox. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/971018.

Comment #4 works for me too. I think the real bug is that this value is not modified by the sensitivity slider.

Hi since an update on the 25/6 the sidebar will not show at all even using Compiz as suggested by Russel.
If I hit hte Suoer Key, it pops out.IF I set it to stay out in Sytem settings, it does.
Could this be a bug or is there anything I might be missing?
I've also changed the sensitivity in Sytem Setings from one extreme to the other and in between, still no joy.

I have had a recurring problem with a package called westchamber and know not what this is or if this has anything to do with it?

I have used the checks from the boot menu and all "seems" good there.
I ran clam on Live CD and found 4 problems that are now deleted.
Could my sytem be compromised?
If so what is the best way to test it?

Sorry that's all I have as I'm not a Veteran user.

Much thanks all.

Hi again,just to add I tried another user account which has not been used,no programs added etc and set the sidebar to autohide.
Same thing happens.The bar stays hidden no matter how many times I het the edge with the cursor.

Cheers

Andrew

Sorry to confuse in my first post,some may think I meant since the 25 or the 6th....I meant the 25/26th of this month September.

Hi, same problem for my. Since the update of the 25/26th September the bar stays hidden.

Again same problem here. I installed python3 at same time as update and thought it had something to do with this but removing python3 has not helped. I have also reduces relevent experimental settings in ccsm to minimum but this hasn't helped.
I don't get a shadoe either.
Is there any way of rolling back the unity package to the previous version?

This is not a bug with unity package. Its a bug with the Latest NVIDIA driver that you have installed from the ppa. see bug 1057000

I have the same issue in Unity 2d, but the ccsm trick doesn't work here. Been working fine for over a month, then I reboot and now the launcher never comes back up unless I press the super key. Tried all the CCSM tricks to no avail. I hate Unity. Unity might be final straw that makes me go off on another track. I can only get my machine to come up using one of the Nvidia drivers. I tried removing the Nvidia drivers and got nothing but black screen and login prompts.

I also just started having this problem. I tried Russel's fix, to no avail. This starting happening after I installed python3, so I uninstalled it, but the bug still seems to persist. This also started happening right after I was playing with some ccsm numbers as well, so I tried to reset all of those numbers, again to no avail. Has there been any progress on this bug? Is there any diagnostics I can do to help it along?