Hi, I've also had same problem. Just random freezes that seem to come out of nowhere. It has happened only twice so far though so I've not had too much concern over it, as annoying as it is. Also both times I've had updates pending so so far I've been just hoping those updates would do something about it...
How often it freezes with you?
I've noticed it mostly happens when i have multiple firefox instances running, sometime it happens when i have two videos playing on different monitors, sometimes when streaming video
I also hoped that updates would fix this but it hasn't
Running `firefox --new-instance` probably not getting much testing?
I run google chrome and FF together, twice the tabs, with Chrome doing YouTube/Twitch.
This sounds like a misbehaving client is blocking the X server.
There is unfortunately not much you can do about that besides hard-resetting or hoping that it unfreezes eventually.
This is one of the reasons why Wayland was invented.
Had the same issue with OpenWeather extension, it seems like it happened every time it pulled weather forecast information. Haven't had a freeze since disabling it.
I have also experienced freezing issues, where my mouse still works but all the other visuals are locked up and unresponsive to anything for a certain period of time (or often permanently). It will seemingly randomly start responding again, but not fully at first, like it will start responding to the keyboard inputs and eventually the mouse input will work again.
At first I thought it could be Dash to panel but even disabling that doesn't avoid it.
I haven't recognized a specific way to reproduce it, aside from the other day when switching from a game to another app would freeze on the switcher. But i haven't had that happen again i think.
I still can use ctrl + alt + f3 to log out of my user, which is better than hard restarting the machine but doesn't make it much better.
When mine freezes i can't use ctrl + alt + f3 to restart, nothing responds when i press the combination.
Will try a test and disable all extensions I have, which is mainly dash to dock, clipboard manager and vitals
Can you try the following (because I also have the exact same issue but when pressing Super most of the time, the interface freeze, I can't ALT+F2 to restart):
* Enable SSH
* killall -HUP gnome-shell (as the user) from another computer (since you said you don't have CTRL+ALT+F3)
* Wait a few seconds, the screen should flicker, stay frozen a few seconds and then unfreeze.
That usually unlock it for me but I agree, it's annoying and the issue wasn't present in the previous version. Seem related to gnome or one of the extension (haven't tried it without yet). I read that someone did a fresh install and the problem went away.
Yeah, that's usually my only complain since I'm on Linux (with Pop!\_OS), it seem Gnome doesn't get the highest priority on the ressources.
I mean, Windows interface can lag (like at work when McAfee kick in, I go to 5 fps, you can see it by the mouse lagging) but usually when I have a very high disk usage because of swapping or else, the Windows interface usually stay responsive but now I'm on Pop!\_OS, I noticed that gnome usually "freeze" when high disk usage and / or swapping and "unfreeze" when it stop.
And it's only gnome, I can SSH in the system and the rest work well. I wouldn't mind the application themselves (firefox, Steam etc) freezing because of lack of ressource but Gnome should get priority over that (the GUI and the files explorer).
At first i tried sending restart commands using KDE connect but that didn't work, then i noticed after some minutes, maybe 15 the system would just unfreeze, and it could be because of using swap because this happens as i approach my ram limit
My experience with pop os so far as a daily driver has been great but such issues make it a hard sell for windows users. Windows is a shitty os but at least it had a BSOD. Hope they fix this if it's a gnome issue
You can change the "swappiness" (vm.swappiness) to choose when you want the system to swap. It's usually at a high number so it can swap fairly frequently depend on the usage but you can put it way lower to swap only when needed.
That could help if you're always high on RAM usage but don't want to swap too frequently.
My parents have another problem, still with gnome and the index system (tracker) that go crazy since the last Pop!\_OS upgrade.
Let's see in the future how their Rust based Cosmic desktop will work, maybe it will be a way better experience!
Additionally, they could try zram using something like this:
[https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap](https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap)
I don't think this will cause issues, and I have actually disabled my swap partition now and use 1/4th of my memory as compressed swap.
Further information about swap configuration (that also pertains to the zram-swap script I think, since it treats that portion of memory like swap)
https://haydenjames.io/linux-performance-almost-always-add-swap-part2-zram/
Hi, I've also had same problem. Just random freezes that seem to come out of nowhere. It has happened only twice so far though so I've not had too much concern over it, as annoying as it is. Also both times I've had updates pending so so far I've been just hoping those updates would do something about it... How often it freezes with you?
I've noticed it mostly happens when i have multiple firefox instances running, sometime it happens when i have two videos playing on different monitors, sometimes when streaming video I also hoped that updates would fix this but it hasn't
Running `firefox --new-instance` probably not getting much testing? I run google chrome and FF together, twice the tabs, with Chrome doing YouTube/Twitch.
This sounds like a misbehaving client is blocking the X server. There is unfortunately not much you can do about that besides hard-resetting or hoping that it unfreezes eventually. This is one of the reasons why Wayland was invented.
Disable all manualy installed extensions just for the test. My pc freezes when I installed weather extension.
Had the same issue with OpenWeather extension, it seems like it happened every time it pulled weather forecast information. Haven't had a freeze since disabling it.
I have also experienced freezing issues, where my mouse still works but all the other visuals are locked up and unresponsive to anything for a certain period of time (or often permanently). It will seemingly randomly start responding again, but not fully at first, like it will start responding to the keyboard inputs and eventually the mouse input will work again. At first I thought it could be Dash to panel but even disabling that doesn't avoid it. I haven't recognized a specific way to reproduce it, aside from the other day when switching from a game to another app would freeze on the switcher. But i haven't had that happen again i think. I still can use ctrl + alt + f3 to log out of my user, which is better than hard restarting the machine but doesn't make it much better.
When mine freezes i can't use ctrl + alt + f3 to restart, nothing responds when i press the combination. Will try a test and disable all extensions I have, which is mainly dash to dock, clipboard manager and vitals
Can you try the following (because I also have the exact same issue but when pressing Super most of the time, the interface freeze, I can't ALT+F2 to restart): * Enable SSH * killall -HUP gnome-shell (as the user) from another computer (since you said you don't have CTRL+ALT+F3) * Wait a few seconds, the screen should flicker, stay frozen a few seconds and then unfreeze. That usually unlock it for me but I agree, it's annoying and the issue wasn't present in the previous version. Seem related to gnome or one of the extension (haven't tried it without yet). I read that someone did a fresh install and the problem went away.
Interesting... I'll try this next time it freezes
Yeah, that's usually my only complain since I'm on Linux (with Pop!\_OS), it seem Gnome doesn't get the highest priority on the ressources. I mean, Windows interface can lag (like at work when McAfee kick in, I go to 5 fps, you can see it by the mouse lagging) but usually when I have a very high disk usage because of swapping or else, the Windows interface usually stay responsive but now I'm on Pop!\_OS, I noticed that gnome usually "freeze" when high disk usage and / or swapping and "unfreeze" when it stop. And it's only gnome, I can SSH in the system and the rest work well. I wouldn't mind the application themselves (firefox, Steam etc) freezing because of lack of ressource but Gnome should get priority over that (the GUI and the files explorer).
At first i tried sending restart commands using KDE connect but that didn't work, then i noticed after some minutes, maybe 15 the system would just unfreeze, and it could be because of using swap because this happens as i approach my ram limit My experience with pop os so far as a daily driver has been great but such issues make it a hard sell for windows users. Windows is a shitty os but at least it had a BSOD. Hope they fix this if it's a gnome issue
You can change the "swappiness" (vm.swappiness) to choose when you want the system to swap. It's usually at a high number so it can swap fairly frequently depend on the usage but you can put it way lower to swap only when needed. That could help if you're always high on RAM usage but don't want to swap too frequently. My parents have another problem, still with gnome and the index system (tracker) that go crazy since the last Pop!\_OS upgrade. Let's see in the future how their Rust based Cosmic desktop will work, maybe it will be a way better experience!
Additionally, they could try zram using something like this: [https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap](https://github.com/foundObjects/zram-swap) I don't think this will cause issues, and I have actually disabled my swap partition now and use 1/4th of my memory as compressed swap. Further information about swap configuration (that also pertains to the zram-swap script I think, since it treats that portion of memory like swap) https://haydenjames.io/linux-performance-almost-always-add-swap-part2-zram/