unity style dialogs sometimes not clickable (keyboard shortcuts, shutdown, ...)

[frostschutz]

When you log into Ubuntu 14.04 for the first time, a keyboard shortcuts dialog is shown. This dialog has an (X) in the upper left corner, but sometimes it's not actually possible to click it. The dialog buttons are for some reason unresponsive.

The same happens with the shutdown dialog. The issue can be reproduced by placing a shutdown icon on the desktop. An executable ~/Desktop/shutdown.desktop file with these contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Comment=
Terminal=false
Name=Shutdown
Exec=/usr/bin/gnome-session-quit --reboot
Type=Application
Icon=system-shutdown

You might have to relogin or refresh the desktop with F5 for the icon to be shown.

When clicking that icon, the shutdown dialog appears but it's entirely unresponsive. You can't click the buttons, you can't click the (X) in the upper left corner. If there is a window in the background of the dialog, for some reason all clicks go to that background window even though the dialog is shown on top. So it's as if the dialog lives in the wrong layer or something.

This only happens when starting the dialog from the desktop icon. The dialog works if you put the icon in the dash instead, or start /usr/bin/gnome-session-quit --reboot from a terminal, or change 'Terminal=false' to 'Terminal=true' (which makes a terminal window appear when you click the icon).

I'll attach the screenshot that shows unresponsive dialog, and regular dialog side by side. You can see the mouse cursor is ignored for the unresponsive dialog, whereas it highlights (X), buttons, etc. properly for the working one.

I can reproduce this both within the Ubuntu 14.04.1 Live CD system, as well as in the finished install.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[frostschutz (frostschutz)]

Since it can be reproduced with gnome-session-quit... although I don't think it's the root issue, since it also happens with other dialogs of the same style (keyboard shortcuts for one). I don't know which package would be responsible for that.

[Iain Lane (laney)]

Thanks, these dialogs come from unity itself, so reassigning there.

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

Is this still a problem? I remember we fixed something linked with this.

[frostschutz (frostschutz)]

I can still reproduce it as described above in Ubuntu 14.10, also when using the Live CD.

If there is a fix, I don't know where to find it...

[Andrew (andrewkvalheim)]

In both "Try Ubuntu without installing" and a fresh installation of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, clicking the "X" button on the top left corner of the "Keyboard Shortcuts" dialog has no effect. The dialog does not go away until I press the super or alt key.

[Vinh Luu (vluu80)]

My father was having this problem on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. The problem began several months ago and was intermittent. When he tried to shutdown his computer, the shutdown dialog would appear, but none of the buttons would be responsive. Even the X button to close the dialog would not be clickable. Instead, the mouse would interact with whatever window is in the background. E.g. if firefox was open, he could click on the menu, scroll the window, etc... all while the shutdown dialog window remains in front, blocking the view. This suggests that the problem is that the dialog windows appear, but never or can't acquire focus.

My father worked around this by pulling the power on his computer... eventually ruining his hard drive. In replacing his hard drive, I decided to do a clean install of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on his computer. Immediately after the install, his computer would shutdown fine. Though less than 24 hours later, this same problem was popping up and he couldn't shutdown his computer through the usual shutdown dialog window. However, this time he left the computer alone... when he came back, the lockscreen had appeared. Upon entering his password to dismiss the lockscreen, the shutdown dialog was able to acquire focus and he could interact with it! He is currently working around this issue by launching the lockscreen whenever he can't interact with the shutdown dialog window. It is a huge annoyance, but it works.

It is worth noting that my father uses only 2 applications on his computer, firefox and skype. Skype runs automatically at boot. Firefox is the first and only thing he launches after login.

Hope this sheds some light on the problem and leads to a fix.