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Every once in a while the interface on the ubuntu box becomes unresponsive. The box has natty installed. The main menu on the top left and the taskbar icons on the top right cannot be clicked on. The only thing that can be done is to close any running applications and restart the system. Is there a more elegant solution? Somehow, this aspect of restarting the entire system just to get a functioning interface defeats the purpose of using linux.

Any help is kindly appreciated.

Thanks.

Jay
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    Does the mouse work otherwise? – maco Jul 05 '11 at 16:58
  • oh yes. The mouse works perfectly fine. I am able to move the pointer around the screen. The problem is that I am not able to click on anything... the menus, the taskbar icons on the top right.. nothing responds to my mouse clicks.. – Jay Jul 06 '11 at 09:01

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There's a good possibility that your problem is related to one I asked about earlier. I suspect that compiz is hanging. To test this, try the following the next time the problem occurs:

  1. Switch to a virtual console (VC). For example, press Ctrl+Alt+F1. Then log in there. (To get back to your graphical environment from the VC, hit Ctrl+Alt+F7.)
  2. Kill compiz: killall compiz. If that doesn't solve your problem, or if compiz refuses to die as happens in my situation, get tough with compiz: killall -9 compiz. Sending -9 forces compiz to end immediately without cleaning up after itself.
  3. Compiz should automatically restart. If your problem is the same as mine, your problem should be worked around.
  4. This approach shouldn't affect any of your programs except for compiz.
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