gnome-shell randomly blocks mouse clicks from working in app windows

I seem to have the same or a closely related problem, my mouse behaves in exactly the same way as described above!

After a fresh install of 13.04, I installed gnome-shell, which is when the problem started. However, It's still there after I have uninstalled gnome-shell. It is always present after the first login after booting.

Logging out and back in removes the issue.

Any ideas what the issue might be?

I forgot to mention, I have this problem with the unity desktop. The mouse behaves normally when I close all windows using alt+f4. The problem reappears as soon as I open any application.

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

Nikola Ciganovic suggests that the problem is only within application windows, and is fine in the desktop? [Unity]

When this problem next affects me, I will try and confirm that on GNOME 3.

The problem is very intermittent and irregular - It happened about 10 times the day before posting, and not at all in the 24 hours following the posting, despite very similar usages of the computer. It's happened a couple of times in the past 24 hours or so.

Additional: While Nikola suggests that the problem is removed when she logs out and back in under Unity, this is not the case for me under gnome-shell: It will often occur again after a couple of hours after logging out and in again.

Indeed, today the problem reoccured (under unity) after a while - needed to re-log in again.

I have the same problem with Gnome3 shell.

Best regards, Vladimir.

I have identified that this bug seems only to happen (for me) when Pidgin is open, and it only happens when switching to or from a Pidgin window.

Query: anyone else have similar findings?

I have this same problem. Mouse is blocked irregulary. It occurs also under unity.

I seem to also be having a similar issue as well. My mouse can move around and shows hover state on the top menu bar, but can't click on anything. I however can't use the keyboard shortcuts to pull up anything. The only shortcuts I am able to use is the ctrl+alt+F1-7 keys. For which that sometimes fixes the issue by bouncing over to one of them then back to the the original shell ie F7. I tend to have to do this shortly after logging in every time. It seems to have gotten more problematic with the upgrade to 13.10 from 13.04.

However the bouncing shells trick sometimes works, but at a random time it stops working. To which I have tried running "export DISPLAY=:0.0; gnome-shell --replace". Which doesn't appear to work for me, and results in a gnome shell where the top bar is missing as well as any boards & title bars on windows. The mouse can still move around at this point, but requires be to do a full restart to get back into a functional state. To note I do see a OpenGL exception after running the replace. Next time this happens I'll try to record the exception.

Is there any logs I can try to pull for you that may help? As I can consistently get into this bad state with a logout & back in, but takes some time to get into the real bad state. Requiring a reboot.

I'm having the same problem after upgrading from 13.04 with Gnome-Shell 3.8 to 13.10 with Gnome-Shell 3.10. I do not use Pidgin.

In my experience, the problem is consistently reproducible when the Overview is exited by clicking on an application. When I select any running application on any Workspace, all applications fail to respond to any mouse input. If I, from the Overview, click to show the Desktop (thanks to the Show Desktop From Overview extension), then Alt-Tab to a running application on that Workspace, I don't encounter the issue.

However, I have found one way to quickly recover which is to activate the Google Chrome browser (which I always have running) and switch tabs via the Ctrl+Pg[Up|Down] keyboard shortcut. I find that it usually takes a couple switches Up and Down, irrespective of which direction I go (i.e. I almost always must go both directions). I happen to have had these keyboard shortcuts bound to the left & right tilt of my Logitech MX Revolution mouse wheel for quite a long time, even before the upgrade, using xbindkeys.

I've performed some extensive testing and my conclusion is that the issue is somehow caused by Chrome, or perhaps the fact that Chrome is resident in memory, consuming 2.7 GB of RAM currently according to Chrome's own internal reporting. I've tried disabling all Gnome-Shell extensions which had no effect. I next tried disabling all Chrome extensions which had a small, but noticeable, effect. The only thing that seems to have dramatically abated the issue is not having Chrome loaded at all.

Here are my system specs, in case it's relevant:
Power:
  RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-730SS 730W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Power Supply
Motherboard:
  ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
CPU:
  AMD FX-8120 8-core 3.1 GHz CPU
RAM:
  Mushkin Enhanced Essentials 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory
Display:
 Video:
  MSI R6570-MD2GD3/LP Radeon HD 6570 2GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16
 Output:
  Insignia 42" LCD HDTV connected via VGA, running at 1920x1080 resolution (1080p)
Storage:
1 x WDC WD10EZEX-00RKKA0 1.0 TB SATA HD used as OS / Home
4.5 TB BTRFS storage array comprised of:
2 x ST31500341AS 1.5 TB SATA HD
1 x ST31500541AS 1.5 TB SATA HD

I think my video card is the weak point and that it needs to be upgraded. After upgrading to 13.10 I did install the latest ATI proprietary video driver direct from their website. Prior to upgrading I had been using the latest Ubuntu-provided binary driver. That may also be a factor, but I haven't tested it.

I recognized exactly the same behaviour as described by Paul M Edwards (paul-m-edwards) and it is really annoying. Is there any workaround?

Some of my system specifications:
OS: Linux laplace-linux 3.11.0-18-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Tue Feb 18 21:11:14 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
CPU: Intel Core i7
GPU: GeForce GTX 650 Ti (nvidia propertiary drivers)

So it doesn't seem CPU/GPU specific.

I also have this problem. My solution has been to toggle the Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + F1) and then toggle bock to Gnome (Gtrl + Alt + F7)

Linux Orithyia 3.13.0-24-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 2 23:30:00 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

GNOME Shell 3.10.4

I too am having this issue (I think).

The issue appears after I go to the activities "section", either by pressing the windows key or by clicking activities. The issue seems to happen when im running games that manipulate the mouse, the main examples are minecraft which locks the mouse somewhere while playing and Civ 5 which hides the mouse and uses a custom pointer. The games work fine until I go to the application overview and back. Most of the time, the mouse can still be moved but clicks stop doing anything in any windows and no hover effects are shown. The mouse works fine on the menu bar in gnome though. Sometimes the issue can be fixed by clicking a window a few times, if that doesn't work, alt tabing in and out of the game fixes it ocationally. If that still doesn't work, closing the game usually does. Looking into the issue further, it seems like clicking on a window sevral times and moving the mouse will almost always fix the issue.

Another way to solve the issue temporarily that I have found is to use the skype integration plugin and open a new skype window, then closing it. It's not related to skype since I have had the issue when not running it but it seems to be able to fix the issue. Looking into it some more, it seems like opening any window will work, for example using ctrl+alt+t.

Also, if no game which uses the mouse is running, opening the activities tab and closing it again without clicking on a window will require one click to gain focus and then one to actually click.

This bug is driving me crazy for months now. I always hit "Alt-F2 and r" to make the mouse working again. But sometimes it occours within 5 minute intervalls for me.

Actually I'm on debian and gnome 3 (and I just googled for the symptoms coming here)

I kind of suspect the nvidia graphic driver to be the issue, this desktop has an older card that was a pain to get working in the first place. I don't have this issue on any notebook I installed gnome 3 on.

If you need any logs that would help nailing this down, I'll gladly look out for them.

I tried running /usr/bin/gnome-shell in a shell and look for its output on stdout, but there is nothing when this happens.

Oh and for me it always occurs when switching virtual desktops / workspaces.

I am running the Ubuntu Gnome 3.20 PPA with Ubuntu-Gnome 16.04 and am still experiencing this issue.

I do not use virtual desktops / workspaces. I just used tweak tool and set my workspace count to static and 1 to see if this helps based on Axel's comment.

I am not running the nvidia graphics driver, I have a build in 3rd gen Intel so i915 driver I think (built in to kernel) so I don't think Axel's nvidia driver is at fault.

I experiment the same problem: mouse click don't work on gnome-shell after upgrade of ubuntu 16.04 with a NVIDIA card on two different Dell E6410. Sometime inside à windows opened (firefox) it still possible to click on inner elements but not in windows frame buttons. This problems not occurs on unity.

I had this on GNOME Shell 3.22.2

The gearound is as stated:
control+alt+fn+F1 switching to a different virtual terminal
control+alt+fn+F* switch back to GNOME Shell

symptom:
mouse can select window and operate the GNOME top bar
Any mouse click inside a client window is ineffective
Keyboard is still operational

That return key above is control+alt+fn+F8

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=777288

I also have this.

mutter 3.18.3-0ubuntu2, gnome 3.18.5-0ubuntu0.2, xorg

Toggling the overview with super fixes the issue until it happens again. I use multiple monitors and gnome workspaces.

I also have a similar issue, however it seems to be only triggered when using Telerik Fiddler (a Mono app, which is in beta for Linux). I assume there is a bug in Fiddler, but it shouldn't make the mouse unresponsive for the whole system.

When the issue occurs, the mouse is unresponsive though the wave animation when pushing it to the corner is rendered. The overview is not triggered via mouse though, but I can open it with the keyboard. Keyboard shortcut for Run (Alt+F2) does not work in that case but otherwise the keyboard appears to be working properly.

Following the comments in this thread, I managed to switch to a terminal and restart gnome-shell, which fixed the issue (though Fiddler's window remained frozen).

See also https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=762193

And for related problems see:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/+bugs?field.tag=noclick

The currently linked upstream bug report has been resolved as incomplete. So I have now instead linked to another one which is still open.

I have the same problem on 16.04

Mouse clicks stops working randomly. Logout/login solves the problme

I appear to have the inverse of this bug: when a window is active, I can click in that window but I cannot use the mouse to change apps or to select sub-windows of an app (such as file dialogs, I must use Ctrl-Alt-Tab) The mouse is completely useless on the gnome-shell panel or on the Activities display, the cursor tracks, but no clicks.

Within an app some actions such as using a menu-bar or the scroll wheel can sometimes cause the mouse to cease all function, it's bluetooth so I switch it off and on and it works within that window again. If I want to change apps (or windows within an app) I use Alt-Tab and typically the mouse will then work in that window, but may fail again shortly after and need another restart. If I am in a File window and select a file that opens an app (eg VLC on a video) the mouse will be active in the newly opened app, and when that app closes, mouse control returns to the File window.

This is using Ubuntu 17.04 upgraded from 16.04 but on an older machine that has been incrementally upgraded since about Ubuntu 12.04, both Unity and Gnome-Classic ran fine in 16.04

I'm using the VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT216 [GeForce GT 220] (rev a2)
I was using the NVidea 304 driver, switched to the 340 and the problem remains.

Original bug still present in Ubuntu Gnome 17.04, see duplicate bug #1703466.

same here. 17.04 just got hit by this.
clean install ubuntu 17.04, nvidia gtx-1060 with proprietary driver.
I was hibernating my PC for about 3 weeks now, suddenly my mouse started to act weird. some clicks worked, some didn't I had problems with moving windows.

the keyboard was working fine apart from the windows key, bringing up activities, it seemed stuck, but occasionally became unstuck, very weird.

managed to logout/login and problem disappered.

my problem soon reappeared... but I managed to solve it.

I use a logitech mx wireless mouse, and found some post saying that windows can mess something up with the receiver. It seems to be related to smooth scrolling, I noticed just before the problem started that my scrolling was way faster then usual. Tried making changes via gnome shell to mouse settings but it didn't do anything. Then I installed "solaar" and through solaar-cli tried to reset, or at least view, what the settings were, but to no avail. It couldn't access any settings, however it did show my devices properly (K270 and MX mouse).

I managed to reset the scrolling issue by flipping the power on the mouse itself. Scrolling went back to normal and the problem is gone for now. Hopefully it stays that way.

It's amazing how many things can break for almost no reason...

Interesting. This bug seems to be a focus issue, so your similar symptoms might have been directly caused by that Logitech hardware bug. I am still affected despite an Intel GPU (untainted kernel) and wired mouse, but may follow your lead next time and try unloading and reloading the HID modules to see if that clears whatever is stuck in gnome-shell.

This seemed to happen worse when I was using Firefox, can't really correlate it with anything. Alt-Tab seems to fix it for me tho. Until it comes back.

I am having the same issue with Ubuntu 17.10 running on XORG. This is a VM inside vmware fusion pro 10. The mouse can move around but the clicks dont work anywhere. I start a terminal session with ctrl + alt + t and then alt + tab and then click on the terminal that i opened earlier for the clicks to start working again.

I have the same or very similar problem on Ubuntu 16.10.

It happens usually after certain programs are run (like notepadqq, sometimes open office or image viewer and most usually Netbeans, with Netbeans on it's nearly certain it will happen on my laptop after some time running, especially when there are more programs). It usually blocks Chrome from navigating tabs, sometimes other windows from clicks or resizing. If not with Netbeans then usually when doing something processor and ram intensive in background (but not as much intensive to be low on memory, like having 16 GB RAM and using 6 GB and 100% of 2 processors).

Strangefully usually closing Netbeans help for me - but not always. Sometimes it's ok after closing but problem is back in few minutes after closing.

It looks like it might be related to some resource in the system but I can't guess which one.

I have the same issue. especially when VLC is hung.

I think it happens when a not-responding dialog is showing on some window.

I have the same issue in Ubuntu 17.10 (Wayland).

I was using Netbeans, Chrome and a VirtualBox VM running Windows 10. It seemed that the VirtualBox grabbed the mouse, but it has mouse integration, and the actions bar and activities were clickable.

I couldn't resolve it by switching to another virtual terminal, neither by running "gnome-shell -r" on a gnome-terminal (it said: (gnome-shell:5963): mutter-WARNING **: Can't initialize KMS backend: Could not get session ID: No such file or directory).

So, I had to close everything and logout and login again. It worked.

Same issue as LuisC on 17.10, but using xorg.

Also, my keyboard stops working, so I can't press super key.

However, the gnome-shell top bar and the Ubuntu Dock still accept inputs.

As a result, I am able to launch programs.

I can also kill programs by clicking on the window's "X" (close) in Activities (overview) mode, but the window controls (close, minimize, and maximize) do not accept any form of input.

Restarting solves the problem. Loging-out and loging back in does not correct the problem. Note that I am able to use the mouse and keyboard on the GDM screen, just like I am able to interact with the topbar and Ubuntu Dock.

I have the same issue as well, and the same result as LuisC when I run `gnome-shell -r`. I also have a touch screen, and interestingly, the windows still accept input from the touchscreen even when the mouse point does not work.

After recently fixing bug 1739625, I now think some instances of this bug will be similar to that -- a missing call to clutter_actor_set_reactive(). Windows won't respond to mouse clicks until mutter calls that function for them. And there are various classes of application that will call that function under different circumstances. Bug 1739625 only covered one very specific case.

We may need to split this bug into many again if more such fixes land separately and only address a subset of applications.

I upgraded to kernel 4.14.15 with ukuu and the problem seems to have gone away. I have a thinkpad x1 tablet. :)

Upgrading from 4.13.0 to 4.14.15 did not solve the issue for me.

No, I think that's probably luck or an indirect side-effect.

The issues with clicks being ignored are in the 'mutter' code.

I have the same problem as described from other users:
solution is to toggle the Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + F1) and then toggle bock to Gnome (Gtrl + Alt + F7)

 /var/log/messeges
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: clutter_layout_manager_get_child_meta: assertion 'CLUTTER_IS_LAYOUT_MANAGER (manager)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Mar 23 10:16:30 HOST gnome-shell[2076]: g_object_set: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

You should ignore most gnome-shell log messages as they are almost always irrelevant to whatever problem you're trying to diagnose :P

I sometimes find that not only mouse clicks get blocked, but everything except ubuntu-dock and the Activities overview stops accepting input. (I can't ALT-F2 to restart gnome, and I can't ALT-tab between apps.) On a couple of occasions I found that it was a single app that had captured input (and crashed), and quitting the rogue app via ubuntu-dock or the Activities overview fixed the issue. But this isn't always possible because some applications put up a dialog asking if you want to quit, and since you can't click on the dialog box, you can't quit them.

Is the bug I'm describing related to this one, or something different?

FWIW, I did find that "killall -3 gnome-shell" will restart the shell without closing your applications if you can manage to get to a tty console. Is there a way to restart the shell from the Activities overview? That would be a good workaround for this bug.

In my case the bug was on gnome-shell extension "workspaces-to-dock"(https://github.com/passingthru67/workspaces-to-dock). I found this log entry:

Apr 24 10:33:35 hostname gnome-shell[2736]: JS ERROR: TypeError: this._porthole is undefined#012myThumbnailsBox<._getPreferredWidth@/home<email address hidden>/myWorkspaceThumbnail.js:1065:17#012wrapper@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/_legacy.js:82:22#012ThumbnailsSlider<._getPreferredWidth@/home<email address hidden>/dockedWorkspaces.js:194:37#012wrapper@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/_legacy.js:82:22#012_init/<@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/layout.js:209:17#012_loadBackground/signalId<@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/layout.js:593:13#012_emit@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/signals.js:128:27#012_init/id<@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/background.js:523:17

After remove /home<email address hidden> and restart session the behavior described here disappears.

Here is reported: https://github.com/passingthru67/workspaces-to-dock/issues/134

Oh wow this was driving me nuts - and indeed the "workspaces-to-dock" extension caused it like in comment #48 - thanks!

Do people find this is any worse/better in Wayland vs Xorg sessions?

This bug happens around every 2nd day for me. It's incredibly annoying and affects my Ubuntu experience in a really bad way.

I don't use workspaces-to-dock, and I still have the issue.

I found that the "Workspace Indicator" was causing this problem for me.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/21/workspace-indicator/

Clean install of 18.04 on real hardware. Xorg session. Nvidia 1050 with open source drivers. 2k resolution. Problem did NOT occur for two weeks. Installed "Workspace Indicator" and problem occurred within 24 hours. It reoccurred once or twice every subsequent 24 hours. Uninstalled "Workspace Indicator" and problem has not reoccurred for four days.

The problem: gnome shell stops responding to all mouse *clicks* within OS or on gnome shell components. Mouse cursor movement is still possible. All keyboard navigation is still possible. Mouse clicks begin to work again after 5 to 10 minutes.

I am experiencing this issue and it's just totally crippling. I can't keep a session going for more than a few minutes without suddenly losing the ability to interact with applications.

The specifics of my experience more closely match bug #1730229 - although that is marked as a duplicate of this one. Specifically, unlike this issue (but like bug #1730229), I am unable to use alt-f2 once the issue manifests itself.

Other mentioned workarounds in this thread do not work for me, including switching-to-tty-and-back, logging-out-and-back-in, and alt-tab.

I have also disabled gnome-shell extensions altogether and set the number of workspaces to 1. Any other ideas for a temporary workaround?

jMyles, does your keyboard also stop responding to everything, including the Windows key? If so then that sounds like your shell is frozen, which is a different bug. In that case please open a new bug by running:

  ubuntu-bug gnome-shell

on the machine.

On my side (Ubuntu 18.04) keyboard is working and click looks like misses window position\passes to other window.
I have very easy way to check if bug is reproduced or not: after login start firefox and check cursor over address string, if it's default cursor and do not change over time - bug is reproduced, clicks missed address string. If I press alt-tab (switches to firefox itself) then cursor changes and clicks become working. If I start other application after this bug can mess up everything and navigation can be done mainly only by keyboard. If I start other application first and then firefox, bag may not reproduce.
This issue showed up right after switching to HIDPI monitor with 2560x1440 resolution.

Add: bug is not reproduced if I do login, logoff and login second time.
And bug is not reproduced through XRDP.

Add: after bug is reproduced, WIN key stops working.

vanvugt, No, my keyboard does still interact with the "gnome system stuff", including being able to use the windows key. I can also click the grid icon in the lower-left to get the same effect.

Ahh, finally I have discovered a workaround. This command, executed in a TTY (which I can access with ctrl-alt-F5 or similar), seems to gently restart gnome-shell and give me everything back with my applications all still running:

dbus-send --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.gnome.Shell /org/gnome/Shell org.gnome.Shell.Eval string:'global.reexec_self()'

With recent updates my issue seems fixed. I cannot reproduce it anymore.

Try alt+F5.

Until I performed the last update on 2018-08-16, I was not experiencing this issue. Now I started to experience random mouse clicks misses with no apparent pattern, making the usage very annoying but not impossible.

Usually I misses the first clicks right after I move the mouse to the desired position. Usually the first few clicks after I stop moving are ignored but if I insist pressing it, it is eventually computed. The mouse over events are working properly because links on the browser and button highlights change as expected so it appears that only the clicks are affected.

The problem always happens when I switch applications using the mouse (the first click never works). The same happens when I activate a context menu.

The only relevant package installed that day was linux-modules-4.15.0-32-generic but a few days earlier, gdm3 was also upgraded.

I'm using bionic X64 with XOrg using RX480 with amdgpu-pro drivers and Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz.

Update: I tested on Wayland and the problem persists.

I also discovered that, if I move the mouse and wait at least 1 second before I press the button, the click is always computed. Just in case, I also monitored the processor load and the issue happens even when the processor is idle.

With last update bug can be reproduced again.

this seems to happen when for example: i use gPodder to save podcast to a thumbdrive/networkshare while the gPodder save dialog is blocking i cannot click links in firefox.

I have a theory some instances of this bug could be caused by the non-deterministic nature of 'get_dirty_pixel' in the mutter source code.

You don't need to know what that means, but if you have the knowledge to test patches then please try this one:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/merge_requests/189.patch

(That page is two patches actually. You need both.)

I just had again a similar problem with current Ubuntu and Gnome 3: mouse left clicks and terminal focus did not work. Alt-F2 including command input and Alt-tab worked but super-tab did not (maybe I use some non-standard setting here).

I also had the "Workspace Indicator" (but not "Workspaces-to-dock") extension installed (which I meanwhile disabled just to be on the safe side). Yet I suspect that in my case the symptom was raised by an occasional and for the most time hidden psensor popup window "Authentication is required to update SMART data from /dev/sda" asking (for some weird reason) for root password input - see also https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread.php?tid=24357 how to disable that)

Not being able to use the system due to some bug is one of the worst user experiences. Such a thing drives people nuts and can easily destroy the reputation of Ubuntu/Gnome etc. A stable user interface should have high priority. I suggest re-designing gnome-shell such that it cannot be blocked by any (misbehaving) application or extension.

Yes, a shell should be able to survive misbehaving apps. If not then that's a (separate?) bug.

I doubt gnome-shell will ever be able to survive buggy extensions. More likely the ability to load extensions would just be dropped. But that's not something being considered that I know of.

On that note, everyone please UNLOAD ALL YOUR EXTENSIONS and verify this bug still happens without any. If you then find it was caused by a particular extension, please list it here.

Thanks @Daniel von Vugt for your comment.

Meanwhile I experienced the issue again with the "Workspace Indicator" extension not being installed, so this cannot be the culprit in my case. Yet while trying to switch workspaces I briefly saw again that silly Psensor popup window "Authentication is required to update SMART data from /dev/sda". Quitting Psensor removed the blockage right away, to this is the extension to blame.
Where/how best to report this apparent Psensor bug?

I had already unticked Psensor's Preferences -> Providers -> 'Enable support of udisks2' (as suggested as a workaround elsewhere), but this did not help. Now I've also unticked Preferences -> Providers -> 'Enable support of hddtemp daemon'. Since meanwhile all HDD related sensors are disabled in the Psensor preferences I am rather confident that the very annoying blockage is gone. (If not, I'll uninstall Psensor, since Gnome 3 is unable to properly deal with its strange behavior.)

dvo, this looks like it. Please run this command to log a new bug:

  ubuntu-bug psensor

and if that fails, then https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/psensor/+filebug

> On that note, everyone please UNLOAD ALL YOUR EXTENSIONS and verify this bug still happens without any. If you then find it was caused by a particular extension, please list it here.

It seems to be caused by the windows-alt-tab extension here.

I've been able to reproduce it if I have more than one application open, and press the META (Win key) + backtick shortcut that is normally bound to switch application window - but only if I have the windows-alt-tab extension loaded.

The following error shows up in syslog when pressing the key combination and the extension is loaded:

Oct 24 09:18:12 sxps gnome-shell[1888]: JS WARNING: [/<email address hidden>/extension.js 42]: reference to undefined property "actor"
Oct 24 09:18:12 sxps gnome-shell[1888]: JS ERROR: TypeError: actor is undefined#012pushModal@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/main.js:436:9#012AltTabPopupW<.show@/home/stian/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensi
<email address hidden>/extension.js:42:14#012wrapper@resource:///org/gnome/gjs/modules/_legacy.js:82:22#012doAltTab@/<email address hidden>/exten
sion.js:443:5

The workaround if I accidentally press the combination is logging out and logging in again.

This bug has also started to appear for me. I found a quick temporary fix:
Click on the top bar of the window and nouse clicks starts to work again.
A possible factor that may caused problem to start appearing might be that i changed the font size from 12 to 10.
The gnome do have lots of bugs so this isn't big surprise. Bugs like right scrollbar partly covering rightmost text character, dropdown list showing only one item (there are many), goetemp extension showing weather warnings always in german and the annoying font size change and rewrap when mouse hovering over a text block.

And bug reproduces again. +WIN key blocked again at that moment.
Interesting observation: unplug-plug mouse helps, hit becomes correct and WIN key working again.

Interesting that I don't see any reports of this bug from 18.10 and later. Is that correct?

@Daniel: I still see this bug occasionally in 18.10 and 19.04. When it happens, the ubuntu dock and the status bar still work, but none of the applications will accept any input, including gnome-terminal. You can switch applications using the dock, but alt-tab doesn't do anything, and ALT-F2 doesn't work.

At this point all I have figured out to try is to go to another tty console and try "DISPLAY=:0 gnome-shell --replace&disown". When I switch back to the gnome-shell tty (usually tty2), it restarts and all is fine for a some time (just now it was fine for around 20 seconds) and then gnome-shell completely and I'm back at the login screen on tty1.

UPD: WIN key fixes exactly at mouse unplug. Ubuntu 18.10.

I am facing a similar issue in Ubuntu 18.04. I have to do alt-tab couple of times to make it work.

I am facing the same issue in Ubuntu 18.10. The super key randomly stops working and I loose control of all windows except for the active window, which in some cases also stops working and cannot even do clicks there. The workaround I found is to close all windows, lock the screen and the problem solves for 5-10 min or so. But this is clearly impractical and I can't really go on like this any further. I re-installed the OS but it didn't solve the issue. I have a Lenovo T430s if that helps. Does anyone found a solution to this yet? I'd appreciate it very much!

The solution until this is solved is to use something other than gnome
shell as far as I know. Mint Cinnamon and Elementary are both popular
alternatives.

On Sun, Feb 10, 2019, 1:29 PM Adrian <<email address hidden> wrote:

> I am facing the same issue in Ubuntu 18.10. The super key randomly stops
> working and I loose control of all windows except for the active window,
> which in some cases also stops working and cannot even do clicks there.
> The workaround I found is to close all windows, lock the screen and the
> problem solves for 5-10 min or so. But this is clearly impractical and I
> can't really go on like this any further. I re-installed the OS but it
> didn't solve the issue. I have a Lenovo T430s if that helps. Does anyone
> found a solution to this yet? I'd appreciate it very much!
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1181666
>
> Title:
> gnome-shell randomly blocks mouse clicks from working in app windows
>
> Status in GNOME Shell:
> Confirmed
> Status in Ubuntu GNOME:
> Confirmed
> Status in gnome-shell package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
> Status in mutter package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> Under GNOME 3, the use of the mouse-click stops occasionally, though I
> can still move the mouse around and can still click on items in the
> Activities screen and the top-bar.
>
> I can use alt-tab to cycle windows and can still type into already-
> active textboxes in windows, but I cannot click within the windows,
> and the mouse is not picked up at all by the windows.
>
> I can open the alt-f2 "run command" dialogue, but cannot type into it.
>
> The workaround I'm using is to open terminal (ctrl-alt-T) and run
> "gnome-shell -r", and restarting that command every time I have the
> problem again.
>
> Please ask if there's anything I forgot to mention.
>
> ADDITIONAL: The error tends to happen randomly, but it seems to happen
> upon opening a new window, changing windows, closing windows, or
> opening the activities pane (whether a change of window is thus
> instigated or not)
>
> ADDITIONAL 2: (sorry, it's early) The other workaround is to log out
> and to log in again, but that is also less than ideal
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
> Package: gnome-shell 3.6.3.1-0ubuntu6
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-22.33-generic 3.8.11
> Uname: Linux 3.8.0-22-generic x86_64
> ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8
> Architecture: amd64
> Date: Sun May 19 07:02:18 2013
> DisplayManager: gdm
> GsettingsChanges:
> b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'clock-show-date' b'true'
> b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'clock-show-seconds' b'true'
> b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'document-font-name' b"'Sans 10'"
> b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'font-name' b"'Cantarell 10'"
> b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'monospace-font-name' b"'Ubuntu Mono
> 12'"
> InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-05-04 (14 days ago)
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64
> (20130424)
> MarkForUpload: True
> ProcEnviron:
> LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
> ...

I'm not sure whether my bug is the same one or even related in its underlying cause. A program that I've helped write is exhibiting a constant failure to respond to mouse clicks in one subwindow that is implemented by an embedded mozilla browser window inside a Mono C# program. Keyboard input to that window works fine, but mouse clicks on a button are ignored. This appears to be related to the main form and controls down to the one hosting the mozilla browser all receiving WM_KILLFOCUS messages shortly after receiving WM_FOCUS messages when first clicking inside the window. Other desktop environments / window managers do not have this behavior in either ignoring the mouse clicks or receiving the spurious looking WM_KILLFOCUS messages. (For example, Unity, Cinnamon, XFCE, LXDE, and MATE all work fine. Unfortunately, none of them are the default for Ubuntu 18.04 which is what many of our users are upgrading to.)
The program can be found at https://github.com/BloomBooks/BloomDesktop for what it's worth. I know it's an unusual mix of C#, TypeScript, Pug, Less, etc. but it works fairly well under Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity or Cinnamon and under Ubuntu 18.04 with Cinnamon. It's quite frustrating for it to have this bizarre bug under the default desktop environment for Ubuntu 18.04.

The program I mentioned in my previous comment is available as a debian/ubuntu package from
http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu as bloom-desktop or bloom-desktop-beta.

+1, exact same problem.

Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS, latest updates / upgrades as of today.
DELL XPS 13 9350

Problem started immediately after upgrading to 18.04

logout / login workaround does the trick, but problem comes back every half an hour or so. So Ubuntu not usable on my beloved notebook :-(

I have the same issue. Sometimes programs don't react on mouse clicks, but mouse cursor working.
I have no idea how to reproduce the issue. But waiting a minute or so resolve the problem.
At the same moment keyboard, left favorites menu and activities work fine.

Seems this is the issue of gnome-shell because it has high load at the moment of mouse locks.

I switched from gnome-shell to elementary-desktop while waiting for a solution, and the problem disappeared.

So it is really a gnome-shell (or extension or whatever) problem.

To mention: I have the EXACT same beheaviour as the OP, meaning the mouse clicks are not working INSIDE the open windows. But i can still click on items in the Activities screen and the top-bar and still type into already-active textboxes in windows.

I think comments from some people here seem more like a general mouse-click not working problem. Not really sure if these are two different issues or not ...

As i can see it seems a confirmed gnome-shell bug and upstream is working on it: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=762193

Note to self, and others:

I think there might still be uninitialized memory problems in mutter, similar to an earlier fix:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/commit/294cceaeb8ecfd468132eff8af1f75c9d60ff21d

I remember thinking at the time that similar bugs might exist elsewhere in mutter, but was focussed on fixing just the bug at hand (which I could reproduce). Unfortunately I cannot reproduce bug 1181666, so that's one reason why it's not yet fixed.

Separately, as mentioned in comment #68, there's a chance that this patch might help:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/merge_requests/189

I believe that I managed to fix this on my machine. I'd suggest to anyone having this issue to check for and uninstall any workspace-related extensions in gnome-tweaks. Read on for more detail.

This problem appeared for me after updating to 19.04 from 18.10. Like everyone else, I could click on items in the top bar (date/time, dock icons) and they would respond as expected, but applications weren't responding to keyboard or mouse input.

It seemed that pressing the super key was triggering this, as things would work more or less fine until the application switcher overlay thing was shown.

After reading through this thread and seeing a lot of mentions of workspace extensions I remembered that I'd enabled the Workspace Grid extension via gnome-tweaks. Loading gnome-tweaks showed a warning indicator next to this extension, with a mouseover tooltip that read something to the effect of "problem loading extension." After removing this extension, things seem to work fine.

Also worth mentioning that the issue was present when running under both Wayland and XOrg.

I am using 18.10 and I have not yet experienced this issue.

For me, in 18.04, something that consistently triggered this bug was whenever I accidentally touched the touch-screen on my laptop while adjusting it.

In 19.04, I am able to interact with the touch-screen using my fingers, and this issue has not appeared yet.

Also, I never used workspace related extensions. So, it is possible that there are multiple issues here, that all have the same symptom. Perhaps there is a common underlying cause, such as a memory issue, as Daniel van Vugt had suggested.

I can reliably reproduce this issue by clicking either Activities on the top bar, or by clicking "Show Applications" on the dock.

With the latter, the Applications Search dialogue comes up, but no icons are shown for recent applications. All applications are shown as expected.

Once the Search dialogue is displayed, I cannot close it. I can launch a program from the All page, and the application starts, but I cannot interact with it. If I switch into a console and kill the application, the search dialogue is still present.

Like with other users, once the bug is triggered I cannot interact with anything on the screen except for items on the top bar situated on the right side of the screen (including the date and time at the center).

To work around I have to switch to a console (Ctrl-Alt-F3), and 'pkill -9 gnome-shell', followed by 'DISPLAY=":0" gnome-shell'. I can then switch back to the graphical interface with Ctrl-Alt-F2. This *usually* works for me, but of course YMMV.

I only noticed this bug when I upgraded my main machine today. I have another similar system which I updated a few weeks ago. In using that I experienced none of these issues. That system was updated today and it now shows the same behaviour, so whatever the bug is, it was introduced very recently.

I can say with reasonable confidence that this bug is introduced by gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock_64ubuntu7_all.deb. I downgraded by downloading gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock_64ubuntu6_all.deb from https://launchpad.net/~ci-train-ppa-service/+archive/ubuntu/3701.1-deletedppa/+build/16616785 and installing with dpkg. No dependency issues or conflicts were identified and the package installed without issue. I restarted my test system and the problem appears fixed.

I'll report back if this is a red herring, but I thought I should report as soon as possible so that other's might benefit.

Hi again folks, sadly, in comment #93 I was mistaken. Reverting gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock does not fix the issue. It appeared to work on one machine, once, and in my haste I reported the downgrade as a possible workaround. This is not correct, and I apologise if I got your hopes up.

I have subsequently downgraded gnome-shell-extension-appindicator, and gnome-initial-setup (with the --force-confmiss option), but without success.

I can confirm that Benjamin has solved the issue for us with comment #89. I too was a user of the Workspace Grid extension. It doesn't start at all in Dingo, and is greyed out in gnome-tweaks. I removed the plugin through extensions.gnome.org and restarted, and now everything is working.

Thank you Benjamin, you have my heartfelt thanks. :)

I do not have this issue:

1. I am not using Workspace Grid.

2. I also removed the Ubuntu version of Dash to Dock

$ apt --yes --quiet autoremove --purge gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock
Then, I downloaded and installed...

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/

Since Dash to Dock options were not available in Dconf, I set the options in...

.../<email address hidden>/schemas/org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock.gschema.xml

Since yesterday I am also massively affected by this issue (Ubuntu 19.04, Dell Latitude 7280). The mouse buttons 'stop working' every few minutes, making working for me very tiresome.

The only gnome extensions I have active are the frippery move clock, system monitor and desktop icons.

Shortly before I installed/updated the following packages:

evolution-plugins-experimental:amd64 <none> 3.32.1-2
libgmime-2.6-0:amd64 <none> 2.6.23+dfsg1-4
pan:amd64 <none> 0.145-1
libgmime-2.6-0:amd64 2.6.23+dfsg1-4
mime-support:all 3.60ubuntu1
hicolor-icon-theme:all 0.17-2
gnome-menus:amd64 3.32.0-1ubuntu1
libc-bin:amd64 2.29-0ubuntu2
man-db:amd64 2.8.5-2
desktop-file-utils:amd64 0.23-4ubuntu1

Maybe that is related, maybe the bug was dormant before, I do not know.

Today, investigating the bug I noticed the following:
* if the bug happens while the mouse is still over an item that can register a mouse click, I can still press the mouse button and the click will be registered.
* I can still cycle the windows with alt-tab and the newly selected window will get the keyboard input, but the old window that was active when the bug happens will still get the mouse click.
* if the bug happens when I click on the dock, then the mouse carries with it the program icon from the dock, and if I press "Esc" then to stop that, mouse seem not to do anything
* "gnome-shell -r" helps for a few minutes, sometimes waiting a minute doing nothing helps, sometimes switching to console and back helps for a few minutes.
* no hardware problem. Mouse works fine on a mac, touchpad shows the same issues as the mouse on ubuntu.

Or, maybe more importantly to understand where the bug is coming from:

* just right now it happened again. I can still use the mouse only inside this edit window inside the html page rendered in firefox to select with double clicks or move the cursor, but if I click on other links or buttons in this firefox window nothing happens, not even in this same page. If I alt-tab to another window and click inside this edit box, I can move the cursor and select, but all keyboard input goes to the other window I selected by alt-tab. To continue writing here I need to alt-tab again to firefox. right-click does not seem to work though, only left-click.
* using xdotool I see that mouse position and window get updated when I move the mouse

So, to my untrained eye it seems it is a problem with selecting the correct item to send the mouse clicks to, because the clicks still get registered but are received by the wrong item on the screen (sorry for probably not using the correct terms here). It seems that when the bug happens the item that was under the mouse cursor at that time stays the one that receives the clicks independent of where the mouse cursor is. If that item does not react to mouse clicks or already has reacted (like the dock) it seems to the user that the mouse button is not working.

Ok, I solved the problem in my case. Given it seemed to be a communication problem I go the idea it could be ownership of sockets. I found various folders in my home directory were not owned by my local user and/or were not readable. Root owned .dbus and .gvfs, below .local were files/folders owned by me but without read/write permission.

I did a "chmod u+rw -R ~.local" and "sudo chown -R [myuser]:[myusergroup] /home/[myuser]" and a reboot and so far no problems since a few hours.

Maybe it would be a good idea to check for that once in a while. There may be valid reasons of not-user-owned folders or files, but probably a warning message would help. Also I believe everything below .local should be read-writeable for the user and owned by it. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I'm probably experiencing the same bug, although it happens right after login. I can't click on windows and keyboard doesn't do anything. It can take minutes until gnome starts working. Really annoying.

The links to related gnome bugs don't work btw.

Link fixed. Sorry, the new Launchpad bug tracker for Gnome Shell was broken and inserted bad links for a while.

I too am experiencing this issue when using:

Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Gnome 3.28.2

Mouse moves but unable to click anything for a minute or two.

Hello anybody. Yes a has same issue too - it happens because an of running application was hung up. System detect it and show pop - up message in the middle of screen about waiting or force closing hung application. More often it happens during debugging an application, when break point was raised and debugger waiting user action so system count this application as hang. Some times it happens so system detect hung application but some reason can't show popup message over hang application. It looks so like wrote on first post - blocking mouse input at any windows except application bar and gnome dashboard. In some application keyboard become locked too, for exaple in Eclipse. Usually i switch to each application and try to interact with it by keyboard typing. If i suspect application hang, i run or switch to gnome-terminal and use command top to detect process id of hang application. Then i found it i use
 sudo kill <app ID>
As is hang application was closed - normal mouse input will restored.

But main question conclude to how to change reaction of system on hanged application - turn off annoing modal dialog. This dialog so bore me a lot. Each time when break point occur during debug process, Unubtu pop up this modal dialog and lock all mouse input in other apps, include debugger too. I need to switch debugging app and press "Wait" in this popup message, some times it need to do more than once. Then I return to debugger continue work.

Some one know how to turn off ubuntu hang application detection?

That is bug 1832426 so please discuss it there.

Hello!

I've exactly the same problem.
Version: GNOME Shell 3.32.2

But I've found easy workaround solution, then it happens: I just press Super button, and toggle the windows view. After that, the freeze is gone.
But it happens more then twice per day for me, so it's kinda annoying.

I get this problem several times a day and it's become very frustrating.

Ubuntu 18.04.3
GNOME 3.28.2

Please let me know if any additional information can help triage the bug.

The possible fix I mentioned in comment #68:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/merge_requests/189

is in Gnome 3.34 and Ubuntu 19.10 now.

However, since this bug became quiet long before that, it seems like something else fixed it already for most people(?)

One more person, me, confirming the existing of this and how counter productive it is.

My daily work with Gnome involves clicking 7-8 times for every time I want to click on something. I've done my clicks for more than two lifetimes.

Please mention which version of Ubuntu/Gnome Shell you have the problem with.

Everyone please also ensure you have tried uninstalling (not just disabling) all non-Ubuntu extensions. Since so many bugs are caused by extensions we need to exclude those as a first step.

Yes. Versions

GNOME Shell 3.32.2

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 19.04
Release: 19.04
Codename: disco

Only extension in tweaks is Alt-Tab Switcher Popup Delay Removal
I have tried to turn it off, but this does not help.

To expand on what Daniel said:

1. Start with one extension and remove it from Gnome Tweak Tools or the GNOME Shell Extensions web site: https://extensions.gnome.org/local/
2. Restart GNOME Shell with ALT+F2, type in r then hit enter
3. If don't experience this bug for a few hours or days (days would be preferred) let us know in this bug report and which extension you completely removed. Perhaps we can narrow down on the problematic extension this way, if it is actually an extension.
4. If you still hit this bug a few minutes or hours later, logout from your session completely and try use the desktop for a few days. If you still have this problem try the next extension and repeat 1-3.

If you have no more extensions installed and the error occurs, please consider filing a new bug report as soon as possible with ubuntu-bug gnome-shell and link the new bug report as a comment in this bug report.

I hope the steps above are useful.

Thanks

thebravoman,

Please be sure to uninstall that extension. Just turning extensions off is not enough to prevent them from interfering with the shell :(

Release: Ubuntu 19.10
Kernel: 5.0.0-31-generic
GNOME: 3.34.1

Freshly installed, so no extensions.

The problem happens *only* on Logitech M185 mouse. Did not observe it with other mice. When bug happens touchpad on Dell XPS 13 (2019) stops working in the same fashion
Left mouse button gets stuck in the "clicked" state. Everything else, including scroll and right button works.
The only remedies are reboot or Ctrl+Alt+F7, followed by switching back. Happens every hour or so, so it is extremely annoying.

Hello, sent there by some reference of 'pushModal: invocation of begin_modal failed', this seems the best ticket to share infos.

Here I can reproduce the issue on Arch Linux and 2 different desktop display, gnome nautilus with gnome files and also on cinnamon with nemo

On cinnamon and nemo, I'm creating a *.desktop file with a missing icon file on disk specified in Icon=

Steps to reproduce:
*) download poc.desktop to your ~/
*) desktop-file-install --dir=~/.local/share/applications/ poc.desktop
*) update-desktop-database -v ~/.local/share/applications/
*) reboot

Without a icon named IDoNotExists.xpm/png installed, I get the window focus problem, repeating the procedure with the icon present fixes immediately the problem

desktop file with missing icon on disk

Oh no the bug happens again with the desktop icons properly set, so it is not the root cause, pfff

I'm setting up at work and home the same Linux setup, at home this is the focus bug fest, at work the bug never happened a single time ! Every click success and I do not have the problems I have at home

The only difference I have from home and work in my setups are

- At work I'm under a proxy, at home direct
- At work the display are 1 graphic card intel and using Mesa if I remember, while at home i'm on nvidia latest drivers and 2 graphic cards
- At work I'm on two displays, at home a gsync single display
- I don't much extensions than what is installed by default on pacman -S gnome gdm cinnamon nemo

I suspect this bug to be driver related, maybe driver and icon rendering problem, but understand that fixing bugs without any relevant log is like searching for a needle in a haystack :/

If I could help feel free to ask cause I believe I could find the root cause with 2 similar setup on 2 different hardware acting differently !

After days of fresh reinstallations and tests, I finally found what was causing this on my end and finally solved it by using a xorg configuration override 10-evdev.conf as shown on [1]

Offender: Gaming mouse driver (Saitek Cyborg R.A.T.9 Wireless Mouse)
Driver: libinput

After a bit of research, I found that this mouse is known to be malfunctioning with the default settings on Xorg. Despite working at a first look, the default configuration is causing the below symptoms as explained by [2]

After being plugged, the mouse will seems to work, but you may experience different issues :
* You cannot move windows around when grabbing the window's title bar. (happens with Openbox and other Window manager)
* You cannot click on buttons.
* You cannot get the focus on windows.
* You cannot open menus, even with keyboard shortcuts.
* Display does not refresh (using Xcompmgr)
* Closing certain windows restores functionality until the mouse locks into a new window.

[1] https://github.com/rkruk/R.A.T.-Cyborg-Mouse-on-Linux [working solution for R.A.T.9 model]
[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mad_Catz_Mouse

I hope this helps somes outta there

I got this problem today and I get it maybe once or twice a month. I'm running Ubuntu 19.10 with Gnome 3.34.2. Today the problem was occurring with my laptop trackpad. It corrected itself when I turned on my wireless Logitech mouse. I keep my GNOME extensions pretty minimal, I only have GNOME Tweaks and Launch New Instance.

This is also happening in Ubuntu 20.04 with Gnome 3.36 and is very annoying

Also running 20.04 LTS pre-release and seeing this problem with wired mouse. Haven't tried wireless mouse. Fresh install yesterday. Gnome 3.36.1. Haven't yet found a culprit but I do have Chrome installed. Seems to happen whether Chrome is running or not. Confirming that ALT-F2 and running the command "r" restarts the shell and the problem is gone for a while. Will continue to try to isolate and report back any useful findings.

After further testing I find the following in the logs at the approximate time of crash:

gnome-shell[4057]: Attempting to run a JS callback during garbage collection. This is most likely caused by destroying a Clutter actor or GTK widget with ::destroy signal connected, or using the destroy(), dispose(), or remove() vfuncs. Because it would crash the application, it has been blocked.
Apr 20 09:37:27 gnome-shell[4057]: The offending callback was SourceFunc().

I have also seen a lot of these messages although it isn't clear to me if they are related:

nome-shell[4057]: == Stack trace for context 0x5620be49a900 ==
gnome-shell[4057]: The offending callback was set_actor(), a vfunc.
gnome-shell[4057]: Error adding children to desktop: Not enough place at monitor 0
gnome-shell[4057]: message repeated 49 times: [ Error adding children to desktop: Not enough place at monitor 0]

Perhaps this will be helpful in finding the cause of the crash.

Steve,

Please use these instructions to report crashes as new bugs: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Responses#Missing_a_crash_report_or_having_a_.crash_attachment

Crashes should not be discussed here.

I've just experienced this for the first time in Ubuntu 20.04 official release. I did a fresh install of 20.04 on a system I had been running 19.10 on without ever experiencing this issue. I am running the proprietary NVidia driver with a GT 1030 card, not using the built-in graphics in my Celeron 4900.

Driver Info: NVIDIA-SMI 440.64

Note that I have never experienced this with my main system (Ryzen 3600X with GT 710 card) running 18.04, also with the NVidia driver and running the HWE kernel.

That reminds me...

Everyone please note something very particular about this bug:

> I can still move the mouse around and can still click on items in the Activities screen and the top-bar.

If you find you can't click on Activities or the top bar then this is NOT the right bug for you. In that case your gnome-shell process has actually crashed or frozen. So please use the link in comment #144 or just open a new bug by running:

  ubuntu-bug gnome-shell

I can easily reproduce this bug on Ubuntu 20.04 with right and left clicking on the desktop to open the context menu alot. On many different machines and virtual machines.
This does NOT happen for me when gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons is deactivated.
On some machines I have to explicitly do the desktop context menu thing to force it (otherwise it will not happen) on some machines it randomly happens even if I do not click on the desktop. The latter is pretty annoying.

Here is my journal -f output when the bug happens.

The moment it freezes:
JS ERROR: Error: incorrect grab helper pop

Every (no longer working) click after the freeze will result in this message:
JS ERROR: TypeError: this._grabStack[i] is undefined

Philipp,

This bug is about only app windows not responding to clicks, not the shell itself. If you experience problems with parts of the shell not responding to clicks then please open a new bug by running:

  ubuntu-bug gnome-shell

Daniel,

the shell itself is still usable in my scenario. You can open the calendar, options menu on the top right and even new windows from the panel. But the windows itself and desktop (including right click menu) are frozen.

I just tested it with the latest gnome 3.36.3 updates and it still happens, still easily reproducible with many right clicks on the desktop.

The same issue here in Fedora32 gnome-shell 3.36.5. Alt+F2->(r) fixes the issue for a while, but in some time it comes back. The mouse clicks are inactive in the middle of the screen (horizontally), but seem to work correctly on the left and right. For example in Chrome with 29 tabs opened, first 11 tabs get correctly activated with the left click. The tabs 12-20 are immune to the click and 21+ get again activated correctly. of course the same thing happens in the other apps. For example windows cannot be dragged when clicked within the 'dead' are, however when clicked in first ~30% or last ~30% (horizontally) they are dragged as expected. Let me know if you need any logs or other details.

I was hit by this issue, when for some reason the left clicks (but not the right ones) on the touchpad were occasionally blocked (Ubuntu 18.04 kernel 5.4.0-48). Disabling the extensions (I had two: appindicators and dock) solved the issue.

Today I had the same issue on archlinux with kernel 5.9.14 and gnome shell 3.38.2, it happend right after taking an areal screenshot with gnome-screenshot while in fullscreen, after that when I hovered windows bar and the side dock the cursor became the classic cross you see while taking screenshots and left/right clicking didn't give any result. gnome-screenshot was called by a keyboard shortcut.

Ubuntu 20.04 still has this issue and they want to make wayland default.

There are enough comments above suggesting the bug also occurs in Xorg sessions. Wayland does not seem to be the cause.

That said, this bug is now 8 years old so it's reasonably likely that it has had multiple different causes (really multiple different bugs) over the years.

Lorenzo (comment #153), that is bug 1910235 you are experiencing, not this one. Please help to verify the fix in bug 1910235.

I used Xorg Gnome on Ubuntu 18.04 every day for it's life and never had an unresponsive desktop. (lock screen is buggy but that's different)

I used Wayland Gnome on Ubuntu 20.04 every day for it's life and get unresponsive desktop every few weeks.

Considering Ubuntu 21.04 is to default to Wayland Gnome is there some other data I can share next time my desktop crashes? Or is beta Testing more likely to get something done about this?

If there were any "crashes" then indeed using a Xorg session you would not notice them, because gnome-shell on Xorg can restart seamlessly and your apps are unaffected. That doesn't mean Wayland is crashing more often than Xorg, only that a Xorg session recovers better from gnome-shell crashes.

But this bug is not about crashes. It's about app windows not responding to clicks while the shell does. So if you do experience that problem then we would like to know how to reproduce it.

We probably don't want any discussions of crashes here because I don't think they will be relevant. They should get their own separate bug reports.

not responding to clicks (due to something crashing or not) seems to happen shortly after switching from charging to battery, otherwise it's intermittent... maybe trackpad related...

in Ubuntu 20.04; if my mouse is grabbed by a vm and I try to take a screenshot via "Screenshot" - default snipping tool in "Select area to grab" mode-, as I click the "Take Screenshot" button, my mouse icon switches to snip mode but then mode selection window reappears as pressed "ESC" button. In my experience, this behavior appears if your mouse drops to a vm which had already grabbed your mouse.

if you move your mouse to the top bar or side bar, your mouse icon switches to snip mode but it is false positive since when you click it just does not function. And if you click "Take Screenshot" button again, even you successfully take a snap, your click function that brings windows forward, disappears. So, lets say if I use double monitor and each has a window on the front. If I click other window to interact etc, it wont do any good. I can not get my keyboard and mouse in the focus of another window. Also at this point, I can not use top right bar features as well.

What I can do is, use ALT+TAB to switch windows. And by this was, I can switch the focus and interact with my mouse and keyboard.

I might remember wrong but this was not happening in 18.04.

I hope this is fixed soon cuz I really get myself into this trap often, especially if I use double vm which I control each on different monitors. I must remember to use "CTRL+ALT" combo to let loose my mouse from vm's.

This is the second VM related issue which I got this year.

I too have been having this issue in Ubuntu 21.04, Gnome-shell 3.38.4.

My system has a touchpad and touchscreen, the closest i have gotten to consistently re-create it is to use the touch screen to click on the same launcher icon multiple times.

It is quite an annoying bug as i get it 4-5 time a session, it seems a little beyond a 'first bug' or id have taken a shot at looking into it.

Ubuntu 21.04 has bug 1922353 that will look like this one. Please try the proposed fix for bug 1922353.

I moved back to using X11 instead of wayland and have not had the issue since if this helps anyone else out.

possibly continued at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/4759#register-pane

I face the same issue that Legendary Nacar has described in his comment #160. The workaround is to use Alt+F2 and type single letter r in the textbox and hit enter as described by Axel Kittenberger in his comment #16.

I have not had this issue since my last comment when I disabled the Ubuntu extentions for gnome...