unity - No launcher or dash in Ubuntu 16.04

I have an Alienware Aurora Aurora R6 desktop computer with a NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti graphics card and pre-installed with Windows. I want to dual boot with Ubuntu, so I installed Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS and the NVIDIA driver. I am at the point where it will boot up in Ubuntu and I can login, but I just see the desktop background with no taskbar or icons or anything.

I first tried the solution given here (Ubuntu 14.04 top taskbar missing), but when I try unity --reset, it gives me errors like:

(process:2858): dconf-WARNING **: failed to commit changes to dconf: Could not connect: Connection refused

and it hangs.

Additionally, whenever I enter the console through Ctrl + Alt + F1, it periodically gives me this error:

[601.02375] pcieport 0000:00:1c.2: PCIe Bus Error: serverity=Corrected, type=Physical Layer, id=00e2(Receiver ID)
[601.025902] pcieport 0000:00:1c.2:   device [8086:a292] error status/mask=00000001/00002000
[601.027832] pcieport 0000:00:1c.2:    [ 0] Receiver Error

I have also tried the solution here (https://itsfoss.com/how-to-fix-no-unity-no-launcher-no-dash-in-ubuntu-12-10-quick-tip/), but it didn't work.

I followed the recommendation here (Ubuntu 16.04 - Unity doesn't load - no Launcher or Dash appears), created a new user, and it worked! But absolutely no idea why the first account didn't work. I just ended up deleting the first account.