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I'm relatively new to Linux and Ubuntu (about 3 months now), and have been pretty impressed with the whole experience, until now. Shortly after an upgrade about 2 weeks ago, (not sure if it's linked), whenever I try to launch any program from the unity launcher, whatever windows are open, and all icons, flicker briefly, then disappear from the screen (leaving only the desktop screensaver). The lapse lasts a few seconds, then the screen returns to the state it was in before I tried clicking. I have to click another 3-4 times (best case scenario) to get the program to launch. The same thing happens when the cursor simply hovers over the unity icons. This problem does not occur when launching from shortcuts on the general desktop, but then I have to go through the same nonsense when trying to switch from, say, thunderbird to firefox, or the vlc player, from the unity launcher.

PS: An accompanying issue (don't know if related) that is not constant, is the cursor not activating whatever's right under it. Writing this, if I want to click somewhere to, say, correct a mistake elsewhere in the text, I have to point to a line over the mistake, to get the cursor to land a line beneath (not sure this is clear). This issue doesn't occur systematically, but happens in & out.

PS2: This doesn't seem to be necessarily hardware-related, as when I reboot with Windows (from bootable external HDD), no such issues.

Any idea what might be causing this?

Shnacky Schnackowitz
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  • Thank you! I will try the solution proposed, and come back to amend the question, or mark it as solved. – Shnacky Schnackowitz Jan 13 '18 at 21:49
  • Please don't "mark it as solved"... Once enough reviewers agree to the duplicate, it will be automatically "marked as solved". If that answer wouldn't solve your problem, [edit] your question and provide more details why the existing answer did not solve your problem... :-) – Fabby Jan 13 '18 at 22:12
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    (...)'s link worked, although I only made it to the reboot (after enabling dev options, and installing patch), which seems to have solved the issues. I DID NOT, however, manage to add " /etc/apt/preferences.d/proposed-updates" as directed (command seems incomplete, and I don't know how to amend it. Sorry I didn't post this there, but I don't have enough rep points to do so. – Shnacky Schnackowitz Jan 13 '18 at 23:06
  • @ShnackySchnackowitz About adding lines to /etc/apt/preferences.d/proposed-updates part: First run gksu gedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/proposed-updates, text editor should open the file after entering your password. Then add the three lines mentioned in the answer (i.e. Package: * Pin: release a=xenial-proposed Pin-Priority: 400). – pomsky Jan 13 '18 at 23:38
  • @pomsky: I tried to run gksu gedit etc.; the text editor opened, then nothing. In Terminal, I got 5 lines of (gedit:3725) warnings (not supported). And there's suddenly 170.4mb worth of updates waiting, which I'm guessing are the result of my not completing the process. – Shnacky Schnackowitz Jan 13 '18 at 23:41
  • @pomsky : I did, and once I saved the 3 lines and closed the text editor window, 6 new lines appeared in Terminal, starting with ** (gedit:4511): WARNING **: Set document metadata failed: Setting attribute metadata::gedit-encoding not supported – Shnacky Schnackowitz Jan 13 '18 at 23:55
  • Ignore those warnings if the file is saved successfully. – pomsky Jan 13 '18 at 23:57
  • OK cool! Thanks so much for your help!! I wish I could upvote your comments, but I'm too low on rep :( – Shnacky Schnackowitz Jan 13 '18 at 23:59
  • pomsky: sorry for the honest mistake: it was typed out wrong while the following were copied/pasted from your posts (my current font hardly differentiates r n from m) @Fabby: It's Shnacky, not Snacky. Now I'm offended, please delete that post! LOL, just kidding, it's all good, and I deleted the offensive comment just in case. Thanks to both of you for your help in getting my system to perform normally again!! – Shnacky Schnackowitz Jan 14 '18 at 20:46
  • Oops. Too late: already deleted @ShnackySchnackowitz – Fabby Jan 14 '18 at 21:03

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