Ubuntu – How to restart Vino (or the Desktop Environment)

Following just happened (in this order):

• I was connected to Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (Unity) via Vino
• Tried to login via PuTTY several times with no success
• Closed my VNC-Viewer
• Tried to login again. Still no success.
• Opened my VNC-Viewer again. Logged out via GUI. VNC-Viewer closed.
• Then I could login via SSH (and installed java8).
• Tried to connect via VNC again. But the server refused my connection.

_{^{Note that my login failures via ssh could have been just me being too tired to write passwords at 11pm}}

Googled how to restart vino. Found this:

$ pkill vino

Then to start it again,

$ export DISPLAY=:0.0

$ /usr/lib/vino/vino-server &>

Did not help. Following error message occurs:

dnndev@skynet:~$ /usr/lib/vino/vino-server &
[2] 20046

dnndev@skynet:~$ Failed to connect to Mir: Failed to connect to server socket:

No such file or directory

Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused

Cannot open display:

Run 'vino-server –help' to see a full list of available command line options

[2]- Exit 1 /usr/lib/vino/vino-server

Seems like I am locked out of the system now. I won't have physical access to the machine until monday. So it would be really great if someone knows how I can get the VNC-Server up and running again.

I'd appreciate a solution that does not include restarting the machine. I really want to avoid that.