Icon & Access to Program Issue

[felemur]

I honestly have no idea where to post this, so move to wherever you feel is appropriate.

Once in a while, the system locks up while I'm working - I'm guessing it is Cinnamon because ctrl-alt-backspace works to get me back. No complaints because I really push the system hard with many programs running that I jump back and forth to and from. However, there is one small but important glitch that forces me to do a full restart which is a pain when I'm in the middle of doing work. I'm hoping someone can help....

After doing a ctrl-alt-backspace only (not a full system Restart), VeraCrypt which is running all the time, does not show the icon in the bottom right panel. Everything else comes back normally, showing their icon. Normally, I click on the VeraCrypt icon to open a different encrypted file. However, when the icon is not showing, I seem to have no way of accessing it. If I go the the menu, and click on VeraCrypt, I get a pop-up that says VeraCrypt is already running. I guess if I knew how to shut it down without seeing the icon, I could shut it down, then restart it - hopefully getting the icon back, and access back.

Any ideas appreciated. Thanks.

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Mint 19.1 Cinnamon

[smurphos]

Is it any different if you restart Cinnamon only (rather than the x-server) via Ctrl-Alt-Esc?

Is it any different if you have indicator support on/off? Settings > General...

[felemur]

Is it any different if you restart Cinnamon only (rather than the x-server) via Ctrl-Alt-Esc?

Is it any different if you have indicator support on/off? Settings > General...

I thought Ctrl-Alt-Backspace was just restarting Cinnamon, so thanks for letting me know about that. To be honest, I don't understand even what x-server means.

EDIT:

I did some reading on x-server, and I get the basic idea of what it does now.

I also did some reading on what the indicator support is about. I turned it on, and the next time I get a lock-up, I will try Ctrl-Alt-Esc first, then if it does not work, I will do the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. I will report back whether or not the VeraCrypt icon is there or not after the x-server restart.

[felemur]

I had another lockup this morning, and now that I know a bit more, I experimented:

When the system locks up, nothing works except I can move the mouse around and the mouse pointer moves on the screen. Right & Left click do nothing.

First, I tried to just leave it for 10 minutes and see if it would resolve itself. That was based on the thought that maybe I'd run out of RAM and the system was trying to swap. I have 16GB of RAM BTW. No change - did not resolve itself.

Next, I tried a Cinnamon restart (ctrl-alt-esc). Did not restart Cinnamon, and nothing happened.

Next, I tried an x-server restart (ctrl-alt-backspace). That worked, and the screen went black, then the login appeared. After logging back in, I had to restart my programs.

Even though I had turned on the indicator support (as per the mention of it by smurphos above), the VeraCrypt icon was missing in the panel just the same as when the indicator support was off.

I opened Nemo, and the mounted VeraCrypt container was still mounted and I was able to access the files within it. However, because the VeraCrypt icon was not there, I was not able to dismount the container or open a new one.

When I went to Menu, and tried to start VeraCrypt, I got a pop-up saying VeraCrypt was still running. Since the data in the currently mounted container was backed up, I decided to experiment. I tried to unmount the container with Nemo by right clicking on it and choosing unmount. That did nothing. The container stayed open and useable.

Next, I started the system monitor, clicked on processes, and killed VeraCrypt. The result was strange. VeraCrypt no longer showed as a running process, yet the container mounted via VeraCrypt was still open and useable - I could open the files within it. So then I went to the menu and clicked on VeraCrypt. It started like it always does when opening it for the first time upon a restart. However, the encrypted contained that had stayed mounted when I killed the process, showed it was mounted and open in VeraCrypt.

From what I can tell, there was no damage to the files within the encrypted VeraCrypt container.

[gm10]

Next, I tried a Cinnamon restart (ctrl-alt-esc). Did not restart Cinnamon, and nothing happened.

Next, I tried an x-server restart (ctrl-alt-backspace). That worked, and the screen went black, then the login appeared. After logging back in, I had to restart my programs.

In that situation what you can also try is press Ctrl+Alt+F1, log in, then run:

Code: Select all

pkill -HUP -f "cinnamon --replace"

Alt+F7 to get back to your Cinnamon session, which now hopefully has successfully reloaded with your applications still running. That's assuming Cinnamon was the culprit in the first place, but it sure sounds like it.

[felemur]

If that works, that would be great. I'll print out those instructions and next time I get a lockup (could be days - it does not happen often) I will try that. I will post back here with the results. Thank you for the suggestion.