[gentoo-user] How to restart/fix frozen XFCE4

[t***@sys-concept.com]

At time to time my XFCE4 freezes. The screen is responding to the keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is responding.
I just lookup some solutions and found this one:

- press: CTRL+Alt+T (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid

xfwm4 --replace &

Any other solutions?

Thelma

[William Kenworthy]

At time to time my XFCE4 freezes.  The screen is responding to the
keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is
responding.
- press: CTRL+Alt+T  (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
Any other solutions?
Thelma

Network mount? - my xfce4 freezes sometimes when a backup is being done
(via a moosefs fuse mount - happens more often if there is a lot of
network activity. I suspect the xfce file manager or similar is looking
into the mount even when nothing is actually being accessed via the
desktop and has to wait, often for a few minutes.

BillK

[Alexe Stefan]

Other possible solutions are killing xfce through telnet/ssh or from
another tty. Another is using the sysrq key, but that is to be avoided.

Post by t***@sys-concept.com
At time to time my XFCE4 freezes. The screen is responding to the
keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is responding.
- press: CTRL+Alt+T (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
Any other solutions?
Thelma

[t***@sys-concept.com]

Other possible solutions are killing xfce through telnet/ssh or from another tty. Another is using the sysrq key, but that is to be avoided.
At time to time my XFCE4 freezes.  The screen is responding to the keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is responding.
- press: CTRL+Alt+T  (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
Any other solutions?

I ask ChatGPT for a solution to this and I got:

1.) Try using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Esc. This will turn your mouse cursor into an X symbol, allowing you to click on the window that's causing the freeze and kill it.

2.) If the keyboard shortcut doesn't work, try switching to a virtual terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2. Log in with your username and password.

3.) Once you're logged in, use the top or htop command to identify the process that's causing the freeze. You can sort the list of processes by CPU usage or memory usage to make it easier to find the offending process.

4.) Use the kill command followed by the process ID (PID) to terminate the process. For example, if the PID is 1234, you would use the command kill 1234.

5.) Switch back to your X session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7. Your XFCE4 desktop environment should now have restarted, and you can log in as usual.

"Ctrl+Alt+Esc" doesn't work, and I've never seen this solution; where does it come from?


Thelma

[Mitch D.]

I don't remember if it was tied to a specific popular Linux distribution,
but this used to be the common response to new Linux-converts when they
asked for the Linux version of Ctrl+Alt+Delete (to kill a hanging process).
I remember some modifier keys and escape, but I can't confirm that it was
exactly "Ctrl+Alt+Esc". The key combination would launch "xkill", which now
shows a skull-and-crossbones cursor instead of an "X" (on my machine, at
least). Using the skull-and-crossbones to click on a window will kill the
process corresponding to that window.

Post by Alexe Stefan

Post by Alexe Stefan
Other possible solutions are killing xfce through telnet/ssh or from

another tty. Another is using the sysrq key, but that is to be avoided.

Post by Alexe Stefan
At time to time my XFCE4 freezes. The screen is responding to the

keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is responding.

Post by Alexe Stefan
- press: CTRL+Alt+T (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
Any other solutions?

1.) Try using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Esc. This will turn your
mouse cursor into an X symbol, allowing you to click on the window that's
causing the freeze and kill it.
2.) If the keyboard shortcut doesn't work, try switching to a virtual
terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2. Log in with your username and password.
3.) Once you're logged in, use the top or htop command to identify the
process that's causing the freeze. You can sort the list of processes by
CPU usage or memory usage to make it easier to find the offending process.
4.) Use the kill command followed by the process ID (PID) to terminate the
process. For example, if the PID is 1234, you would use the command kill
1234.
5.) Switch back to your X session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7. Your XFCE4
desktop environment should now have restarted, and you can log in as usual.
"Ctrl+Alt+Esc" doesn't work, and I've never seen this solution; where does it come from?
Thelma

[Mark Knecht]

Post by t***@sys-concept.com
At time to time my XFCE4 freezes. The screen is responding to the

keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is responding.

Post by t***@sys-concept.com
- press: CTRL+Alt+T (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
Any other solutions?
Thelma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

[t***@sys-concept.com]

At time to time my XFCE4 freezes.  The screen is responding to the keyboard, mouse pointer is moving on the screen but nothing is responding.
- press: CTRL+Alt+T  (to get to terminal)
- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
Any other solutions?
Thelma

I've tried the above solution after XFCE froze. It did not work.
Pressing CTRL+Alt+T worked, window open with a terminal and responded to keyboard (not the mouse).

- pidof xfce4-panel
- kill -9 pid
xfwm4 --replace &
the above worked, but did not help. htop did not show anything was using excess CPU.

I logged in as root and "/etc/inid.d/display-manger restart" did not restart X, just unresponsive black screen