Ubuntu hanging

corblimey

Since Linux dists rarely hang when doing mundane tasks, I suspect this is something I've done/not doing. I wanted to add to my favourites list in Nautilus File Browser. So I clicked the folder name at the top of the window and dragged it down to the left hand area. It got added immediately, but now I can't get rid of it. It's attached to the cursor, there's a sort of closed fist and the icon for the folder. I can't move to another window or application or anything. This is the second time this has happened, last time I just restarted.

Any ideas?

An Fear Aniar

That sometimes happens, I don't think it's anything you've done wrong. I'm not sure what you did though: "clicked the folder name at the top of the window"?


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corblimey

Yeah, didn't think that bit was clear. Basically, the folder I'm in (say /home/aaa/nnn) normally appears in a textbox at the top of the file browser window, much like say the url textbox in firefox. There's a button to the left of that that changes it to buttons for each folder, so a 'home' button. a 'aaa' button, and a 'nnn' button. I clicked this and then dragged the 'nnn' button to the favourites area (bottom left nav). It's the only way I know how to add links here. After letting go in the left nav, the 'nnn' link appears there fine, but the hanging commences as described above

Clear as mud?

An Fear Aniar

I see what you mean.
I think you should just drag the folder itself. That's what I do. Dragging the tab is probably not something they expected users to do and therefore have not added functionality for it.


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corblimey

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

I see what you mean.
I think you should just drag the folder itself. That's what I do. Dragging the tab is probably not something they expected users to do and therefore have not added functionality for it.

Do you mean go to the aaa folder and then click and drag the nnn subfolder over to the left hand side?

An Fear Aniar

corblimey wrote: »

Do you mean go to the aaa folder and then click and drag the nnn subfolder over to the left hand side?

Yeah, whatever folder you want quick access to. You're not moving the folder, you're just setting up a shortcut to it.


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corblimey

Thanks for that. Any tips on getting out of my current predicament? I can't click anything on the screen. With Windows, I'd just CTRL+ALT+DEL and see what the task manager was doing. Is there any 3 finger salute in Ubuntu that will stop this issue? Or am I pretty much resigned to cold reboot?

ethernet

Restarting the X server might be enough (certainly better than a reboot!). This is ctrl + alt + backspace.

Tony H

there's a handy little app called "force a misbehaving application to quit"
you can add it to the panel and it pretty much nukes any programme that you want to quit immediately

sorry just reread that and this only works if your mouse is able to access the panel

drakshug

ctrl esc is the equivalent of ctrl alt del.