I had the exact same problem as described but I am using Arch Linux. I made a simple uninstall with pacman -Rcsn. I know this isn't the same command for ubuntu but just use apt-get autoremove and make sure to add the option that also removes all configuration files. Some times some files are still there. In my case it was in my home folder under .config/nautilus and .local/nautilus both for my user and root. To be sure you have deleted everything I suggest using the command:
"find|grep nautilus" under both root and your home to make sure all files are deleted. After that I installed nautilus again. Maybe make a full restart before but I didn't have to. I use Gnome 3 on Arch Linux so hope this maybe apply to you as my discovery makes me think that it might be a fault with configuration files.
I had the exact same problem as described but I am using Arch Linux. I made a simple uninstall with pacman -Rcsn. I know this isn't the same command for ubuntu but just use apt-get autoremove and make sure to add the option that also removes all configuration files. Some times some files are still there. In my case it was in my home folder under .config/nautilus and .local/nautilus both for my user and root. To be sure you have deleted everything I suggest using the command:
"find|grep nautilus" under both root and your home to make sure all files are deleted. After that I installed nautilus again. Maybe make a full restart before but I didn't have to. I use Gnome 3 on Arch Linux so hope this maybe apply to you as my discovery makes me think that it might be a fault with configuration files.