[CentOS] GNOME UI / gnome-shell broken

Tue Aug 24 18:07:10 UTC 2021
Felix Natter <fnatter at gmx.net>

hello CentOS7 users,

I have an up-to-date Scientific Linux 7 (_very_ similar to CentOS7).

The problem is that if one user (we have central homes) logs into any
machine, we only see a desktop with icons, but no window decorations or
top/bottom bars ("panels") (for both gnome-classic and gnome3).

I can fix the window decorations by running "metacity --replace", but
the other problem remains.

I tried to remove .gnome, .gnome2, .gconf, .metacity, .cache, .dbus,
.dmrc.

I noticed that when starting "gnome-shell --replace" from a terminal, I
get "Failed to migrate monitor configuration for ... Empty
Configuration", and when running gnome-control-center, the option
"Displays" shows "Could not get screen information" and the console
shows: 'Name "org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig" does not exist'.

This happens both when logging in physically and when logging in
virtually using VNC.

How can I fix this? Do I need to reset more of GNOME's config?

Many Thanks and Best Regards!
Felix
-- 
Felix Natter