Ubuntu 26.04 GUI intermittently freezes, but system and Terminal remain responsive

dareys · September 21, 2026, 8:04pm

Ubuntu Version

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Desktop Environment (if applicable)

GNOME

Problem Description

Greetings,

I apologize if someone has already reported this, I am new to this group and had some trouble posting, perhaps in the wrong place.

I am experiencing unpredictable freezing of the GUI, it could be once a day, or several times within minutes. I have researched the topic and can recover by restarting the GUI without a reboot.

However, I moved to this environment because I thought I would get more stability than with Windows 11 which randomly reboots no matter what you do to prevent it.

e.g. not checking for updates, dissabling services etc.

So, if this is a bug for this release, perhaps it should be reported.

Below is the information for my workstation.

dareys@Sirius:~$ uname -r7.0.0-31-genericdareys@Sirius:~$ cat /etc/os-releasePRETTY_NAME=“Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS”NAME=“Ubuntu”VERSION_ID=“26.04”VERSION=“26.04.1 LTS (Resolute Raccoon)”VERSION_CODENAME=resoluteID=ubuntuID_LIKE=debianHOME_URL=“``https://www.ubuntu.com/”SUPPORT_URL=“https://help.ubuntu.com/”BUG_REPORT_URL=“https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/”PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=“https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy”UBUNTU_CODENAME=resoluteLOGO=ubuntu-logodareys@Sirius:~$

Thank you.

Jean-Pierre

Relevant System Information

dareys@Sirius:\~$ uname -r
7.0.0-31-generic
dareys@Sirius:\~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME=“Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS”
NAME=“Ubuntu”
VERSION_ID=“26.04”
VERSION=“26.04.1 LTS (Resolute Raccoon)”
VERSION_CODENAME=resolute
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL=“https://www.ubuntu.com/”
SUPPORT_URL=“https://help.ubuntu.com/”
BUG_REPORT_URL=“ https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ ”
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=“https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy”
UBUNTU_CODENAME=resolute
LOGO=ubuntu-logo
dareys@Sirius:\~$

Error Messages / Logs

No error messages received, the front end severely impaired.

What I’ve Tried

sudo systemctl restart gdm3

Actionparsnip · September 21, 2026, 9:24pm

Does it unfreeze on its own?

dareys · September 22, 2026, 1:57pm

Twice, although it remains unclear if it was a matter a letting enough time elapse, or, something I tried … At this point, I just reboot the GUI from the terminal by running “sudo systemctl restart gdm3” which closes all browser sessions and programs. Annoying, but not as much as a Windows 11 “spontaneous” reboot, you know what I mean?

Actionparsnip · September 22, 2026, 3:41pm

OK. After you get control back, open a terminal and run

sudo dmesg | tail

What is the output, please?

ogra · September 22, 2026, 4:29pm

Just a heads-up, you’ll need sudo to run dmesg in recent Ubuntu versions…

Actionparsnip · September 22, 2026, 4:53pm

Noted. Thanks for the heads up (makes a bash alias). Comment updated

dareys · September 22, 2026, 4:59pm

Please bear with me… 1. The workstation would have to freeze 2. I would have to have time to wait for it to come back 3. Run the command and send the feedback. Thank you.

dareys · September 24, 2026, 9:07pm

Greetings, just a note to let you know that since we have interacted here, the GUI has frozen half a dozen times… Twice I have waited ten minutes or so, no change, I have been forced to restart the GUI. Honestly, it is very odd and worrisome, not the advertized 99% up time, it must be a glitch in this release. FYI. Thank you for your interest and suggestions.

rubi1200 · September 24, 2026, 9:09pm

Please post the make and model of computer with full specifications.

Thanks

Actionparsnip · September 24, 2026, 9:20pm

OK, did you run the command?

dareys · September 24, 2026, 9:54pm

Yes, twice, but since the GUI did not recover from the freeze and the subsequent restart closed all the windows, the output was wiped out from the screen, I forgot to save it to a file.

dareys · September 24, 2026, 10:04pm

Thank you for the feedback, sure.

I am testing on a older backup machine, with limited ressources, running Windows 11 without problems.

I did not think there would be issues, I actually thought performance and uptime would improve.

It is a:

IdeaPad 3 15IAU7

3v1n0 · September 25, 2026, 12:31am

When frozen can you switch to another tty?

Likely you can can’t, but if you do it would be nice to get debug logs (I can provide guidance).

Or similarly, can you ssh into the machine?

dareys · September 25, 2026, 2:03am

Thank you for responding, apparently you did not read the whole thread. Only the GUI freezes, the clock runs, all applications run, I can access a terminal session, have been told what to when it happens, and I have, but have not saved the output duh… I have disabled remote access for security reasons. I think it might be a hardware related issue. If the logs help, just let me know where to find them and I will attach.

Actionparsnip · September 25, 2026, 8:45am

OK but after you regain control, then run the command in a terminal

avb66 · September 25, 2026, 9:30am

And save the output to a file, so it does not get lost.

dareys · September 26, 2026, 3:55pm

Everything has been stable for 48 hours, perhaps one of the several OS updates addresssed the glitch. If I experience the problem again, I will run the command, save the output and share it here. Thank you all.

dareys · September 29, 2026, 5:39am

So, it has been at least four days without a freeze, looks like the updates might have fixed it. Let us keep our fingers crossed. Thank you for your support.

dareys · October 3, 2026, 3:21am

Hi there.

My laptop was stable for a week, no GUI freezes, until today.

Here is the output of the command after restarting the GUI:

dareys@Sirius:~$ sudo dmesg | tail[20004.869374] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997573.208:54982): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.htop.htop” name=“/sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled” pid=49863 comm=“htop” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20004.869380] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997573.208:54983): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.htop.htop” name=“/sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent” pid=49863 comm=“htop” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20006.393022] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997574.730:54984): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.htop.htop” name=“/sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled” pid=49863 comm=“htop” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20006.393028] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997574.730:54985): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.htop.htop” name=“/sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent” pid=49863 comm=“htop” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20007.916949] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997576.255:54986): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.htop.htop” name=“/sys/module/zswap/parameters/enabled” pid=49863 comm=“htop” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20007.916959] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997576.255:54987): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.htop.htop” name=“/sys/module/zswap/parameters/max_pool_percent” pid=49863 comm=“htop” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20009.030606] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997577.368:54988): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.brave.brave” name=“/etc/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/” pid=50525 comm=“brave” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20009.030642] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997577.368:54989): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.brave.brave” name=“/etc/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/” pid=50525 comm=“brave” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20009.030673] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997577.368:54990): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.brave.brave” name=“/etc/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/” pid=50525 comm=“brave” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0[20009.030698] audit: type=1400 audit(1790997577.368:54991): apparmor=“DENIED” operation=“open” class=“file” profile=“snap.brave.brave” name=“/etc/vulkan/explicit_layer.d/” pid=50525 comm=“brave” requested_mask=“r” denied_mask=“r” fsuid=1000 ouid=0dareys@Sirius:~$

Thank you.

Jean-Pierre

dareys · October 3, 2026, 5:12pm

Greetings,

Amazingly, thirty minutes after I restarted the GUI and wrote this post, it froze again, after a full week of stability…

As if the Gods of IT were telling me it was time to go to bed (rather nice) but what about “free will”?

It would be nice to have this fixed, it doesn’t make the claims of 99.99 % uptime look good you know?

How do we escalate this to CANONICAL engineering?

Thank you.

Jean-Pierre