this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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So, it just froze on me about 10 minutes ago. I can drop to the console. The vm manager icon did not disappear from the menu bar, so I was wrong about that. Everything freezes. I cannot interact with any browser or any app. The mouse pointer did change from a pointer to hand over a link or something at one point, but never changed back. After dropping to the console, I eventually just had to reboot and restart everything. The best way to describe it is, someone replaced my desktop with an image, and the only thing that still works is moving the mouse around.
I'm thinking it's been about a week or so since it did this last. Oh, and I was poking around on a web page when it did it. Web browsers are always involved, but not specifically any one browser.
If you can still switch to the console, then check
dmesgand/orjournalctl -ebfor any issues. But this at least tells you the system itself is not frozen. The kernel still works.I would try to restart your login manager/desktop environment and see if that brings you back to a working desktop. If so then it sounds like a software bug in your DE. You could try switching to a different one and see if that helps anything. As a last resort you could also try a completely different Linux distro.