Multi-Workspace Issue

[KimaldSkimald]

Hello. Please excuse any mistakes, this is my first time on Githhub.

I'm on eOS 8, and for the past 2 months I've been running into this issue where switching between workspaces effectively causes my system to become unresponsive.

Using a touchpad gesture to switch workspaces, the animation will randomly get stuck partway through the transition, after which I'll have an arrow at the top-left corner of my screen. Every workspace becomes unresponsive, dock becomes unresponsive, all I can do is use that same gesture to switch workplaces until I power down the PC.

It's become an almost daily issue, and having to reboot to fix it is a huge problem. Any help is appreciated.

[teamcons]

Hi !
Oh this is bad. I know that kind of bug, it is very irritating... :(

Is this on the default, "classic" session (on OS 8 it is the default one), or is it on the "secure" session ?
you can switch between both by clicking on the gear on the login screen.
If you login automatically, you can simply log-out to see it.
if you havent tried, please try, and write whether that changes anything

do you know if you have a computer with an "Nvidia" card? What is the constructor? (HP, Asus, Acer...)
do you use two or several screens?
have you scaled up your screen resolution ? (if you do not know what i refer to, then likely not!)

[KimaldSkimald]

It is a little frustrating. I'll try the secure session for a while and see if I run into the issue.
Although since posting, I think I've narrowed it down to either the Photos application, or a workspace being in fullscreen to be the cause.

Classic session.
Nvidia card (GTX 1650).
Acer (ConceptD 15 Ezel).
Single screen.
Native 1080p (1x scaling factor if that makes any difference).

[teamcons]

What do you call a workspace being fullscreen?
Is it
-The multitasking view? With all the windows floating around?
-A window being fullscreen, like a videogame?
-A window being maximized?

Nvidia very commonly cause issues on linux. Especially on Secure Session - So now i would want to retract that idea, unless you are not afraid of experimenting (which would leave us with clues!)
The Photos app has a very old codebase, it is also possible some old hacks causes problems.

Would you be open to enter a couple commands to retrieve logs about the crashes that could give a couple pointers ?

coredumpctl debug gala --output=~/gala.log

Right after facing the issue again (whenever possible)

[KimaldSkimald]

I meant a window being exclusive fullscreen. (I usually have 1 window per workspace, 3-5 workspaces opened)

After trying for a while, the problem seems to only occur when I'm using Photos to view a picture in fullscreen.
I've tried fullscreen video playback in a browser, and I tried running a game in fullscreen, and have not run into this problem yet.
For now I'll avoid the Photos application, but I'll post that log if I run into the problem again.

[KimaldSkimald]

I haven't run into this issue since I stopped using Photos, so that seems to be the solution. Thank you for you help.