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This is my exact problem: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/3404

Since my installation of Gnome 46 a couple days ago or so I have been noticing that for some programs windows are visible as a certain size (as in, I can see the box with content in it rendered on my screen), but the cursor/mouse believes the "true" window to be much smaller. Clicking outside of that "true" window (while still in the visible window) counts as a click on whatever element is underneath the current window.

If I minimize the desktop and try again the click on the app works fine. Apps include

  • Chrome
  • VS Code
muru
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bibble235
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2 Answers2

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UPDATE: This issue seems to have been fixed in current 24.04 (see my last link with the bug report).

The bug report says this happens with apps that require Wayland-compatibility through Xwayland (e.g., VS Code, Steam or old GTK apps).

Until a fix comes about, the following command seems to fix the issue (but not permanently - when you reboot the issue reappears):

pkill mutter-x11-fram

The issue seems to be caused by a race condition (sometimes one program runs before another), killing mutter-x11-fram forces it to restart and solves that race condition. But I am not an expert - please read the bug report for more information.

I have not tested this, but people are reporting that disabling auto login also works and fixes it permanently.

The issue has been fixed upstream (see the bug report above), but it has not been fixed yet in downstream Ubuntu (see here the Ubuntu bug report).

Ricardo Cruz
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  • Any news about a better way than this? – elect Jul 12 '24 at 09:08
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    @elect The issue seems to have been fixed upstream, so it should just be a matter of time before the fix lands in Ubuntu. Meanwhile, some people are saying that disabling autologin fixes the issue for them - I have not tested that. – Ricardo Cruz Jul 14 '24 at 16:17
  • jul 18 2024 still got the problem in old gtk apps – BlueBeret Jul 18 '24 at 12:46
  • What does this command do? – lordsarcastic Jul 26 '24 at 16:46
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    @lordsarcastic I am not a Gnome developer, I would recommend reading the bug report I linked to. But my understanding is that there is a race condition - mutter-x11 (the Gnome window manager X11 support) should start after the rest of the window manager, but often it starts before. Therefore, you need to kill it so that it now restarts after the rest of the window manager. pkill kills a process by name instead of by id. -HUP is to forceful kill the process (normal kill just asks the process to exit). – Ricardo Cruz Jul 27 '24 at 19:51
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    Actually -HUP says to send a particular signal (the HUP ("hangup") signal in this case) which the process presumably arranges to catch and respond to, in this case to restart itself; but if it does not catch the signal, the process is terminated. By default the TERM signal is sent, which behaves the same way (terminates unless caught). However the KILL signal forcibly kills and can not be caught. See "man 7 signal" – jimav Aug 08 '24 at 20:19
  • To whom it may concern: Looks like after killing mutter-x11-fram, some applications may not work properly. I noticed an issue with Telegram (had to restart my desktop). – ENIAC Mar 31 '25 at 16:16
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I also encountered this issue and my graphics card driver is nvidia-driver-535. It seems that the 24.04 ubuntu-gnome-desktop has some compatibility problems with the nvidia-driver-***, and this issue was solved after I removed the nvidia driver and used the X.Org driver. I don't know your dirver version and this method is not elegant, but it may give you a way to solve this annoying issue.

Lucas liu
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  • I may try this but would rather not. The system is unusable as it is today and I am completely surprised people are not raising this more. But thanks for the tip as it is a workaround. Thanks again – bibble235 May 01 '24 at 07:44
  • So wanted to add that signing out and back in on Ubuntu 24.04 as mentioned, in several places on the web, does seem to make the issue go away without changing any software. I am on NVIDIA and AMD Ryzen 7 5700G – bibble235 May 02 '24 at 01:44
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    True, in the last 15 years, this version is the worst I've ever encountered. Neither X11 nor Wayland seem to work without bugs... Canonical seems to deteriorate – kanehekili May 19 '24 at 00:15