Gnome Classic 12.04 panel applet “Force Quit” locks up system, hardware reboot to recover

[keepitsimpleengr]

Trying to kill a hung application using the Gnome panel applet causes 12.04 Gnome Classic desktop to hang. No console, no response to mouse action (except movement), no keyboard response. Requires hardware reset to recover.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gnome-panel 1:3.4.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.39-generic 3.2.16
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed May 30 08:54:08 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-25 (4 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Lathan Bidwell (lathan)]

I can confirm this on my system. any way to recover from this without restarting the X server?

Installation from 12.04 64bit cd.
Running in gnome classic (no effects).
Gnome Force Quit applet on gnome-panel.

[Fabien Michel (fabiin12)]

I have the same problem, but I do not know what action causes the blockage.
The only way I found and killed gnome-panel.
Why I do ctrl + alt + F1, then once connected:
sudo killall gnome-panel

Fresh install of 12.04 with gnome-session-callback / gnome-panel - no effects
Gnome Force Quit applet on gnome-panel.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Same configuration, same behaviour.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Quantal is affected by this bug too.

[Nithin (nithin-kumar999)]

work around:

Add to gnome-panel a custom application launcher with command as "xkill". It works very well.

Thanks to http://useranswer.com/answer/how-to-add-force-quit-icon-in-ubuntu-12-04/

[qwert (qwert3-deactivatedaccount)]

Damn. I did not know that killing the gnome-panel works too, I always had to reboot. Thx :)

(I use 12.10 and the bug is still here)

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Thank you. Nithin.

I still hope that this bug will be fixed soon.

[Norko (norko-solko)]

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:19.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/19.0

"Force quit" gnome applet is broken. If I add it to the gnome-panel and click on it I can't kill desired window and its window is above others and do not close.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Add "Force quit" applet to the gnome-panel
2. Press recently added "Force quit" icon
Actual Results:
"Force quit"'s window appears, it does not kill a desired window and do not close.
There is no reaction from system. Normal operation is possible only after logout of X-server restart.

Expected Results:
After click on desired window it will be killed (closed). At any moment the desktop is functional.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

I recently installed 12.04 from latest CD-image. The bug is still here. Please fix it before 14.04 release.

[Peter-and-Crazybear (crazybear)]

Yes, the one that come with the 12.04 install freezes all up. I can't even get rid of it..I just try not to touch it. However, I added via terminal another force-quit and it works fine. They just need to add the working one to the install package - or make that one install properly.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

12.04.3, bug is still here.

[Dliang (dliang)]

Are you using gnome2? fallback mode?
(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:19.0) Gecko/20100101
> Firefox/19.0
>
> "Force quit" gnome applet is broken. If I add it to the gnome-panel and click
> on it I can't kill desired window and its window is above others and do not
> close.
>
> Reproducible: Always
>
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Add "Force quit" applet to the gnome-panel
> 2. Press recently added "Force quit" icon
> Actual Results:
> "Force quit"'s window appears, it does not kill a desired window and do not
> close.
> There is no reaction from system. Normal operation is possible only after
> logout of X-server restart.
>
> Expected Results:
> After click on desired window it will be killed (closed). At any moment the
> desktop is functional.

[Norko (norko-solko)]

I use Gnome 3 with gnome-session-fallback.

[Cxiong (cxiong)]

I doubt there is much to do on distribution side.

As fallback mode is dropped from support of GNOME (see
https://wiki.gnome.org/ThreePointSeven/Features/DropOrFixFallbackMode), newer
version GNOME/openSUSE will not even ship with it. So just no one is doing
anything about fallback mode anymore.

A possible quick fix is to use command line tool: xkill.

I also suggest to try out GNOME 3 (non-fallback mode), and to have a GNOME
2-like feel, you can find a lot of useful extensions on
https://extensions.gnome.org/, including a "force quit extension". Also in
future GNOME/openSUSE, there will be an officially bundled extensions pack that
offers a better GNOME 2 experience. See
https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.8/, many extensions in the Classic
pack are available for openSUSE 12.3 (which includes GNOME 3.6) and are
installable from the above gnome extension site.

In case, you would like a more authentic GNOME 2 style, there are also two GNOME
forks:
1. Cinnamon (fork of GNOME 3), needs 3D graphics support.
2. MATE (fork of old GNOME 2), _no_ 3D support required.

However these are not included in openSUSE 12.3, you can install them from
unofficial repos from http://software.opensuse.org/ though.

Hope these help.

(In reply to comment #2)
> I use Gnome 3 with gnome-session-fallback.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

There is no bug in Ubuntu 13.10.

[Dominique Leuenberger aka DimStar (dimstar)]

Dear Reporter,

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make openSUSE better.

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in openSUSE since the time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test it on a current, supported openSUSE version.

When you test it and it is still an issue, kindly reopen this bug and move it to the tested version of openSUSE.

Truly yours.