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Gnome Shell on Ubuntu 18.04 has started to randomly become unresponsive some weeks ago. It was not a big deal at that time be cause it rarely happened. Since then it went worse and now this happens only a few seconds after I restart the shell with killall -3 gnome-shell or Alt+F2 then R when this is working.

By unresponsive I mean that I cannot focus a window with the mouse (but Alt+Tab is working), the Super key has no effect, the left side dock cannot be clicked anymore, Alt+F2 is often not working. This is becoming a nightmare.

I disabled all my extensions but that didn't change anything. I looked in /var/logs but didn't find anything useful. This question is describing my exact problem but I don't have the mouse is question.

So what is the best course of action to troubleshoot this?

Thanks

EDIT

Once the Gnome Shell has "fully" crashed, i.e. I get back to the session login panel and all applications are lost, I get some time without problem. Then the issue pops up again.

I noticed that before (or after, I don't know?) each crash, there is this line in /var/log/syslog:

gnome-shell[20080]: pushModal: invocation of begin_modal failed

I couldn't find any pattern examining /var/log/syslog and nothing helpful on the internet.

ddidier
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1 Answers1

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Here are a few paths you might want to take:

1) Create a new user.

Making a new user as a troubleshooting step will rule out if your problems stem from your user's configuration files. A new user will have all default configuration files. Creating a new user also will not affect any of the files in your current user's home directory.

Add the new user and give them a home directory:

sudo useradd -m newusername

Give the new user sudo privileges (if you need them):

sudo adduser newusername sudo

Reboot and log into the new user you've just created.

If everything works, there must be problems in the configs under the home directory of your old user. See #2 below for troubleshooting if you want to "rescue" this user.

You will likely want to delete a user, either the old or the new. To do this, use the command...

sudo userdel -r username

... to permanently delete a user and its home folder. This command cannot be run from the user to be deleted.

2) Manually delete configs

You may want to inspect and delete configuration files for software related to the problems you are having. You can find user-specific configs in the hidden dotfiles & folders under the user's home directory beginning with: /home/user/. (mind the dot . after user/)

For example, you may want to force your GTK configuration files to generate new defaults by moving them to a backup location:

sudo mv -r /home/user/.config/gtk-3.0 /home/user/.config/gtk-3.0-old/

This would give you precise control over what aspects of the desktop you are tinkering with, but you could really spend all day doing this.

3) Reinstall GNOME

If your problems are not solved by wiping your configuration files, a more thorough solution would be to completely reinstall GNOME.

You can do this two ways:

by using apt-get install --reinstall

Log into a virtual terminal with CTRL + ALT + F3 

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install --reinstall gnome-shell
sudo reboot

purge & (re)install with apt

Log into a virtual terminal with CTRL + ALT + F3 

sudo apt purge gnome-shell
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gnome-shell
sudo reboot

apt purge will also remove system-level configuration files, however it will not remove configuration files in your home folder.

Nmath
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