I have no idea why, but almost hourly, compiz shuts down and gets replaced with metacity again. All I have to do is restart compiz and it works again. It's really getting on my nerves. Does anyone have an idea what's wrong?

I do not understand these words...

Is this because you do not use Linux or because I wrote in a way that is hard to read. I've been fighting with configs for a long time so my ability to think, and along with it, my ability to write are impaired.

Ask soleron? Hes really into Linux here. Otherwise you may have to go someplace else for Linux help, sorry.

Um, do you have the fusion icon installed? and if so did you select compiz as the default theme manager? If you already did that then maybe the instalation was flawed eg maybe you installed an older version with newer dependancies or vice versa. Which variant of Linux are you using?

Yes, Compiz is set as the default theme manager. It's the Compiz that comes with Ubuntu 9.04 which is what I'm running. Canonical released a new kernel today though and it hasn't switched to metacity on me since that, so fingers are crossed.

What graphics card do you have, and what driver? Because switching the driver could help.

Using the nVidia driver 180 provided by Ubuntu. Using a GeForce 8800 GT. Problem persists on new kernel unfortunately, have been experimenting with settings in Compiz itself. Also (finally) thought to turn on the crash handler plugin so next time it happens (it's much less frequent now for some reason) I should be able to get a log.

Have you tried using the Nouveau driver instead?

metacity its the window manager?
if you still have the effects just no borders.

and have emerald installed.

go to start up programs and add "emerald --replace" command name it emerald.
i have a 8400 running nvidia 185 just fine.