Ubuntu – How to restart Gnome Shell after a crash short of killing X

11.10gnome

How can I restart Gnome Shell after a crash? Alt+F2 and restart won't work as the prompt crashed with the shell. Since windows focus is gone along with the shell as well, I can't type gnome-shell --replace in a terminal, either. The Ctr+Alt+F1 command line can't open the X display. So I'm left with killing X, thus loosing all open applications. Is there a keyboard shortcut for restarting Gnome Shell?

Best Answer

I found that all the other ways did not work for me (i.e. those based around gnome-shell --replace).

First, switch to tty1 with ctrl+alt+1, then log in. Use top or htop (or pkill?) to kill gnome-shell (you will probably need to kill with sigkill 9). (You might need to run DISPLAY=:0 gnome-shell, although I usually don't.)

Switch back to the GUI with ctrl+alt+7. (Normally gnome-shell will automatically restart for me.)

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