Gnome Shell

Restarting Gnome Shell

Sometimes your gnome desktop will freeze or crash. You can try a couple of things.

Approach 1: Keyboard Shortcut

Try Alt + F2 and then type r and Enter

(See askubuntu thread). This will only work if the shell is responsive. If not try:

Approach 2: From a Terminal

If you can get to a terminal run:

killall -HUP gnome-shell

You might be able to do this from a terminal window or by sshing into your machine.

In a worst-case scenario, try switching to a TTY Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F3) and type rgnm

See this reddit thread