Gnome unresponsive JS ERROR: TypeError: windowActor is null

[Dave Chiluk]

gnome-shell becomes unresponsive after about 1 day. I'm able to interact with the window that had focus when the problem appears (in this case it was Chrome), but I'm unable to select or otherwise interact with other windows, the shell, dock, or indicators.

The logs are spammed with
gnome-shell[2916]: JS ERROR: TypeError: windowActor is null#012_addWindowEffect@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/closeDialog.js:90:28#012vfunc_show@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/closeDialog.js:162:14

This looks similar to but different enough from
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bug/1841774

I was using the i915 driver when this happened if that makes any difference

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.36.4-1ubuntu1~20.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-42.46-generic 5.4.44
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-42-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.6
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Thu Aug 6 09:08:32 2020
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-06-12 (54 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200609)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.36.4-0ubuntu0.20.04.2
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It appears this was reported upstream:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/3006

but that's been marked as a duplicate of:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/2467

which is also mentioned in bug 1841774. So maybe they are related.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

See also bug 1880405