I am runnung Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. If I have a few windows open (say four to six, not a large amount), and minimise all by pressing Ctrl+Super+D, they all minimise immediately with no problems. However, if I minimise them one at a time, by clicking the minimise button with my mouse, the last one often hangs.
Usually it will appear as a ghost on the screen for a while, semi-minimised (in other words, shrunk toward the Unity launcher bar, half-size or smaller, and semi-transparent). Usually it will eventually clear; sometimes the computer just freezes and I have to restart it.
It doesn’t seem to matter what the window actually is. Just now, I had to restart my computer with Skype* semi-minimised. I’ve seen it freeze before with the Terminal semi-minimised (and the Terminal wasn’t even doing anything at the time). The only pattern is that it’s always the last window minimised which freezes, and that minimising all windows together using the keyboard shortcut works fine.
What on earth is going on, and how can I stop it?
Graphics information
$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 1
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 3
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 4
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SATA AHCI Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV635 [Radeon HD 3650/3750/4570/4580]
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV635 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 3600 Series]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: Creative Labs [SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio] CA0110-IBG PCI to PCIe Bridge
05:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs [SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio] CA0110-IBG
glxinfo is too long to fit, so I popped it into the Ubuntu pastebin.
* I hate Skype, but I need it for work.
I would suspect there is something wrong with a combination of the minimize effect/desktop being redrawn that is causing the crash. If I recall correctly Ctrl+super+d doesn't redraw desktop; it just minimizes everything.
Also, you can try disabling window effects. To do this, install compizconfig-settings-manager and find the option to do so there.
If that doesn't work, 12.04 should have a 2d unity mode that you should try.
Let us know what happens with each of these and we can go from there.
As lbaile200 says you must try installing CompizConfig settings manager and disabling window effects.
But I am guessing that this might have something to do with system cache. You might try clearing it off with
Ubuntu Tweak's
'Janitor' feature. Install Ubuntu tweak with these commands:Then open it from dash or with the terminal command:
It will show up like this and you need to select
Start Janitor
(as seen below):(I am using numix circle icon theme and so it may look different for you according to your theme)
Now in the Janitor select whichever kind of cache you want to remove and then select
Clean
. This should remove unwanted cache from your computer. Now see if your problem persists.Also you can try resetting unity to its defaults. Refer to this answer.
PS :- For those of you who are wondering why cache clearing would solve graphical glitches see here. The OP there says its clearing cache that solved their issue.
I'm observing the same issue, on 15.04, so as this person here
The problem is that when minimizing the last window, the animation just hangs and unity freezes. The mouse is still active but whatever I click nothing happens. The only way to get out of it is to press Alt+Tab, select the descktop and this unlocks unity.
This problem is not linked with the king of animation that I choose for the windows minimizing. I have selected different animations and even tried to completely dissable them without removing the problem. The only way to get red of it is to enable the desktop icons. I get this problem only if I disable all desktop icons.
Fred
This could be related to a bug that occurs with desktop icon viewability set to off (can be enabled/disabled with a tool like ubuntu tweak, or the above mentioned
ccsm
program). If you change this setting to hide desktop icons from view in the desktop, you might get this lockup-on-minimize behavior.I also arrived here for the same problem and many a times it has been reported in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1171451
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1170483
Some users faced this problems often and said that resetting unity is solving it.
Now I am able to minimize my last windows and no problem is occuring .