Desktop stops responding to all keyboard and mouse clicks

[Barry Warsaw]

Binary package hint: unity

I don't have a way to reproduce this yet, but I believe it is associated with Alt-tab use. Every hour or so, my desktop just simply stops responding to keyboard clicks or mouse clicks. Cursor movement still works, but the entire desktop is completely unresponsive. As far as I can tell, window output still works (I think my IRC client is updating), and the machine still accepts ssh, but that's about it. I have to remotely log in and reboot the machine to get it back.

Is there a less disruptive way to kill and restart Unity remotely? (Assuming of course that it's Unity that's crashing here.)

[Barry Warsaw (barry)]

Note that this could be a compiz bug. If I ssh in and kill -9 compiz, the latter will restart and I'll regain control of the keyboard and mouse.

[Matthew Gregg (mcg)]

This happens to me frequently. Killing compiz will not correct the issue for me. Desktop stops responding to keyboard and mouse, but I can still switch to the console.

[S. Zeid (s-zeid)]

Me too. I'm experiencing this on an Eee 1005HA netbook. I can still control it using VNC or a USB mouse when this happens, but not with the built-in keyboard or mouse. Restarting Unity or Compiz does not seem to work.

[Lunderhage (lunderhage)]

This might be related to the problems I have:

Windows do not repaint after alt+tab.
Gnome Panel does not repaint after unfolding the cube (ctrl+alt+down).

Windows are repainted if I minimize all and maximizing all again.

I am sitting with an Asus K70AF using fglrx.
(http://support.asus.com/Specification.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=K70AF&p=3&s=197&hashedid=hwhZUwaS8NLSauqk).

[Eugene (ylamanosau)]

I got same problem. couple times a day :-(

[Matthew Gregg (mcg)]

This may be fixed. Made it through a full day with latest updates.

[Dave C (charltondavealt)]

I just upgraded from 10.10 to 11.04 and I'm getting the same problem. Unity loads and I can move the mouse but nothing responds to mouse clicks or the keyboard. I can switch to the console with Alt+Ctrl+F2, when I switch back with Alt+Ctrl+F7 I get a black screen with the mouse cursor.

The Ubuntu Classic option does not work either. It loads and my background loads but the Gnome panels never launch.

Using Ubuntu Classic (without effects) works fine.

My laptop has an Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 which supports 3D acceleration, and the current Nvidia driver is in use.

[David Strauss (davidstrauss)]

This happened to me a few days ago while the system was under heavy I/O load and I clicked "empty" in the trash bin menu.

[Byron Poland (wpoland)]

I'm getting this about once or twice a day. Will just turn around and come back to my laptop, (Dell 1420N - Intel Graphics) and the UI will be frozen - clock is froze, mouse moves, and I can switch to a console but I haven't been able to kill the session to get back on, other than by rebooting from the command line.

I'll be happy to collect some debugging info from the command line next time it happens if I get instructions.

[Adam B. (adamrb)]

I'm also seeing this. I can reproduce it every time by opening LibreOffice Writer.

[Benjamin Kerensa (bkerensa)]

Thank you guys for your diligence in reporting this issue its obviously important to get this resolved soon.

[Pritam Baral (pritambaral)]

I have some detailed reports about this particular bug, having tested it myself.

->ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 with fglrx from the repos

It occurs when using the "Application Switcher Plugin" instead of the "Static Application Switcher Plugin" in "CompizConfigSettingsManager".
It happens especially when you return to the same window after a complete cycle of 'Alt+Tab's. The Window actually works fine, just the screen rendering of the window doesn't redraw. For example, in Chromium, when you click on another tab or open a new one, the Title in the Panel changes accordingly, if we reply to a facebook chat, the reply goes fine, just the window doesnt redraw.

Umaximizing (and Maximizing again) restores the window drawing state to normal.

[Whinis (john-p-turner)]

I have worked around this issue by issuing compiz --replace. Since mouse does not work I have a launcher on my desktop to complete the action. Also keyboard commands not work is not entirely accurate, Tab, Enter, and the arrow keys still function.

[nSide (nnside)]

The same thing occured when notebook woke up from blank screen (energy saving). Mouse moving, I can increase volume with multimedia keys, but the screen doesnt respond to any keypresses or clicks.

[Alex Solanos (hakermania)]

Once or twice a day at me two, it doesn't accept mouse clicks but after a while it does, I don't need to reboot.

[Travis Whitaker (pi-boy-travis)]

I see this as well, it occurs anywhere from every half hour to every three or four hours. Dell Inspiron 1520 with Intel integrated mobile graphics. No keyboard input is accepted, I can move the mouse but nothing responds to any clicks, even the seconds on the clock are stuck. I've been rebooting from the console to remedy the issue, I'll try compiz --replace and report back next time it happens. It only happens on this machine, so I'm guessing it's somehow related to the graphics card. I'm surprised this hasn't received more attention. . .

[Travis Whitaker (pi-boy-travis)]

Just had it happen again. compiz --replace did nothing, killing X got me back to gdm login on tty7, but when I logged back into Unity everything was still frozen, except for the mouse cursor. I'm going to try logging into the Ubuntu Classic desktop to see if I can reproduce the issue there, has anyone else tried that?

Who should this be assigned to?

[Travis Whitaker (pi-boy-travis)]

Sorry to post so many comments in quick succession, but this bug is related to screen blanking, i.e. closing the laptop lid or turning the display off after a certain period of time. I can reproduce the bug by closing and opening the laptop lid. It does no occur when using the Ubuntu Classic desktop.

[Sean Upton (seanupton)]

I see the same problem as Pi Boy on Inspiron 1520R with integrated Intel Graphics. Usually either inactivity due to lid closing or screen blanking and I have the same symptoms.

[Adalberto (adaca)]

No duplicate of bug #728101 for me: it doesn't happen (only) when closing lid, but also just leaving the laptop alone for enough time; it happens to me 1-2 times per day, after the upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04.
The last messages I always find in syslog, after Ctrl+Alt+F1-ing to a console, are:

May 16 09:41:35 adaca-PSL4BE-2 acpid: client 29751[0:0] has disconnected
May 16 09:41:35 adaca-PSL4BE-2 acpid: client connected from 29751[0:0]
May 16 09:41:35 adaca-PSL4BE-2 acpid: 1 client rule loaded

The 29751 process is X.
Usually, at this point I follow the PID chain until the gnome-session, and kill it; going back to the UI with Ctrl+Alt+F8 gets me the login form, I can then login but my previously opened windows are gone.
I'll try the "compiz --replace" fix next time, and post an update here.

[Adalberto (adaca)]

Hi,
'compiz --replace' didn't work (no display), so I had to kill -9 gnome-session also this time.
Applications running at the time of the freeze were:
- Firefox
- Chromium
- Thunderbird
No LibreOffice applications were running at the time of the freeze, but beforehand.

[ЯR (yar-webdev)]

At me the screen was frozen at start of some apps (LibreOffice), switching-off of some Compiz plugins (D-Bus, File watcher, Resize info, Title bar info, Jpeg, Svg, Text) have solved a problem.

[Alex Grönholm (agronholm)]

I don't think this has anything to do with the screensaver. I have an HP EliteBook 8540p with an nVidia video controller and fairly often I get this same problem -- mouse moves around, apps work but the system responds to no keypresses or mouse clicks. Killing gnome-session from the console fixes the problem, but then I lose all unsaved data from the apps. I don't have any of the compiz plugins enabled that ЯR disabled to fix this issue. Are you sure that fixed it?

[ЯR (yar-webdev)]

For me this bug doesn't occur any more (on Lenovo z570).

[Gonzalo Bermúdez (gonz0)]

I think the comments on this bug are a mix of different cases, all resulting in graphics hanging. In mine, every single time I opened (Open|Libre)Office applications, or executed some commands from the shell (touch, rm, for instance) the system hanged as described by almost everyone. Have never had problems with the computer in idle state or some other symptoms mentioned.

Inspired by https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/760769/comments/22, I tried disabling file change plugin in compiz, and in my case it solved the problem. I can now go back to using Unity.

[Gino (ginobeans)]

Lately, I've been having the same issue. My desktop mouse cursor was responsive, but the clicks were registering or being detected.

I was able to ssh into this machine when it happened. Doing a top, I noticed that the load was > 12 ! (Typical load is usually < 2).

Also, there were some ibus related processes hogging up gigabytes of memory. Bizarre and a little unnerving. I killed a couple of these ibus related memory hogs, my system came back to normal.

So, I think the mouse clicks not being detected was a side effect of the system being under such a heavy load that it couldn't respond in a timely fashion to mouse clicks.

Also, as a side note, I changed my Google Chrome configuration to disallow running in the background. It also seemed to be using up a solid gigabyte+ of memory.

I'm going to try to remove ibus and see if the crazy load issue (I wasn't really actively doing anything to stress the system at the time) goes away..

[Alaa Murad (alaamurad)]

My solution was

alt+ctrl+f2
killall -9 java
nohup unity &

alt+ctrl+f7

back to normal

So try to kill some process that you using and see.