I'm having a strange issue in Ubuntu 16.04.2. Some programs will only start after a delay of roughly 20-30 seconds, or will have this delay when opened a certain way, but not another.
Here are some example programs:
Slow startup:
Chromium/Chrome
Terminal (when started with Ctrl+Alt+T)
Opera
Normal startup:
Firefox
Terminal (When started from Launcher or Dash)
Spotify
Steam
I can't see any connections, as the slow startup seems to affect both pre-installed/native programs and 3rd party programs.
I've encountered this problem before, and tried re-installing Ubuntu. It worked fine for about a month before it showed back up. Also didn't have the problem when running from USB, so probably isn't hardware. Each time the problem has arisen, is after I've been using mostly Windows for some time, but that's installed on a separate SSD, and it can't read the filesystem on the Linux disk, so I don't think it's Windows' fault.
Most website logins seem to be forgotten once the problem manifests itself, and one website even thought I was on a new machine.
I already know that re-installing Ubuntu works (at least for a while), but I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what could be causing this, or what I can do to narrow it down.
There's free memory and swap, and low CPU usage.
Thanks for having a look!
Update: Tried installing a couple other desktop environments/window managers(?). Switching to XFCE removes the delay when trying to start a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T, but it's still there for the other programs. Ctrl+Alt+T (and other programs) still slow in GNOME.
