HELP - How to FORCE CLOSE unresponsive program or window?

jerryvno30

Alt F4 does not work. Any other solution to this issue? Thanks.

davidjharder

jerryvno30 If you like process monitors, try something like htop in the repository.

Lucien_Lachance

open a terminal and type killall programname
for example killall firefox

kyrios

The brutal method:
sudo kill -9 <pid>

algent

More brutal: Pres 5 seconds the power button.
Just kidding.
Haven't tried @kyrios suggestion, I will note that.

v3l0ct

algent That's why i keep a 12 gauge shotgun close to my computer.

brent

algent It's no joke, once in a while that is the only method. I used to have long and massive FF freezes to the point where you can't launch anything, terminal or htop.
Ergo, no PID accessible.

Hard reboot is the only solution if the app freezes itself, the os, and the memory.

***I did switch back to FF from Vivalid recently and those problems seem to have disappeared. Thanks solus team if applicable.

edit: accidentally bolded a section

viyoriya

proper method is

kill -15 <pid> (you can get the pid from top command or ps -elf in terminal or you can install htop and press F9 and select the signal and kill)
if it doesn't respond for kill -15 <pid> then do kill -3 <pid> or kill -11 <pid>
always allow the application to clean up. If you use kill -9 <pid> it will kill the application and may leave the corrupted files.
normal command is
kill -s TERM (-s is signal)
you can see all the signals using kill -l in terminal or in htop press F9 all the signal displayed in the first column.

johano

xkill can be useful for shutting down an unresponsive window.

I don't know if it's installed by default, but it's in the repo. I've found it worthwhile enough to assign it a keyboard shortcut.

When you run it an x-shaped cursor appears, you simply click on the frozen app and it kills it.

Here is how tldr describes it:

xkill
Kill a window interactively in a graphical session. See also kill and killall.
Display a cursor to kill a window when pressing the left mouse button (press any other mouse button to cancel)

Justin

System Monitor works...

uniquegch

I have the issue with Audacity, I tried all kinds of ways to end, kill, stop, xkill, System Monitor, but it will not be stopped / killed, a reboot is the only solution by now.
but if you could get some more ideas I am more than happy to try them out.

seanragout

uniquegch
Download xkill, its not installed by default. Assign it to a key combination in keyboard shortcuts (I use super+x)
Next time a program freezes, hit super+x and you'll see a little skull and crossbones replace the cursor.
Position this over the offending program window and zap! program is terminated. Has never failed for me yet.

SOLUSfiddler

uniquegch
Hi there!
I've had all kinds of issues with Audacity over the years.
Loads of icons in the app invisible, no format selectable when I wanted to export a file - you name it, I had it.
Until I got so fed up that I contacted Audacity support.
They told me that they have stopped supporting Audacity for the many different linux distros around, it was just too much for them to keep up with.
They recommend the AppImage version for all linuxes instead, it's the only one they keep maintaining, and after some hesitation I installed it (having made sure to scrap all other Audacity debris from my computer).
You know what?
I works.
When I first started the software the starting window froze but I persevered and hit that ENTER button around a thousand times - and eventually I must have done something different and it worked and has done so ever since.

elfprince

The xkill man page does not explain how to assign a key combination. Any hints?

brent

elfprince I'm interested in making xkill work, as well.

johano

Go to Gnome Settings and add a shortcut, putting xkill in for the Command:
You can assign whatever name and shortcut you want

brent

johano this interface is mostly identical in Budgie, thank you for the info. seanragout hit your desired key combo, the cursor suddenly morphs into a skull and crossbones, and program gets terminated by a single mouse click? Cool🙂

seanragout

Yep, what Johano said is the way (not in the Mandalorian sense 😀 )

uniquegch

Hello everybody, thanks for all the suggestions, but unfortunately none of them worked. my only solution was to reboot the computer.

WetGeek

uniquegch my only solution was to reboot the computer.

If you were running Windows, that would have been everyone's _first_ suggestion.  😆

YuriTheHenrique

I like to use pkill "process name" it works even for windowns executables on wine, killall works too, I dunno the difference, xkill for me just works if the process is opened directly, on wine for example, it just closes the window, but wine is still running in background and sometimes still hangs on, making everything slower until pkill is used.