Cannot access Xubuntu menu

[Little Girl]

Hey there,

Phil wrote:

>As I mentioned that no longer works.

You had mentioned trying alt plus the right mouse button. I suggested
alt plus the right mouse button. It makes a big difference. That no
longer works on my Kubuntu system, but might on your Xubuntu system.
If it doesn't, the Super plus left mouse button (with the left,
again, being important) might work for you. If not, you could try the
Ctrl key with the left mouse button. It does nothing on my system,
but might work on yours.

There's also some significance to the right Alt key as compared with
the left Alt key, so you'll want to try each of them one by one with
the left mouse button to see if that makes any difference.

>After a lot of messing around I was able to close Firefox and I now
>have Thunderbird in a reduced window size, I cannot maximise,
>minimise, or move  the Thunderbird window. The Microsoft window is
>now under the Thunderbird window.

Something odd is going on. And from your other message, you've pretty
well ruled out a hardware issue since you booted successfully into
Windows, although I'd still be tempted to swap some of it out just to
see if Xubuntu has developed a sensitivity that Windows doesn't
suffer from. I see that you already tried swapping out the mouse. Have
you also tried swapping out the keyboard?

Another possibility for the keyboard is that you may have
inadvertently pressed a key-combination that put your keyboard into a
different mode than usual. Does your keyboard come with a
key-combination you can press to reset it to default? Mine does. If
yours does, that would be worth a try.

Also, have you tried going into a virtual terminal, loading up the
GUI, and seeing if it works from there? I found these instructions,
but am not certain that they're right for Xubuntu. You'll want to
double-check to be sure:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 through Ctrl+Alt+F6 to switch to one of the
virtual terminals, log in, and then use this command to load up the
GUI: sudo systemctl start lightdm
2. Try manipulating the windows.
3. Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to return to the original session.

>I cannot move the Thunderbird window and so I cannot access the
>Whisper menu. This means that I cannot access any other applications
>including my password safe, backup application or a terminal window.
>I cannot move this composer window either.

If you can't get to the main menu with the mouse, a press of the Super
button should open the menu and you can then navigate it either with
the keyboard or the mouse, depending on which one works. From there,
you might be able to do some poking around in your settings or your
processes, etc., to see if anything jumps out at you or reboot.

>It seems to me that I should be able to get the system back to
>normal after booting into rescue mode but I'm reluctant to mess
>around with something that I don't fully understand. At least I can
>use Thunderbird to ask for help but nothing else.

Good. Do you also have another device you can use in case this one
becomes unusable until it's fixed?

>My system was working perfectly until I tried to use an updated SDR 
>application.

Was that something from the Ubuntu repository or something you
grabbed from an external source online? And do you remember what it
was doing or what it had done or what it was trying to do when this
happened?

>Any suggestions from anyone will be greatly appreciated.

Another possibility is to create another user and log in as that user
to see if the issue persists or not. If all is well as the other
user, it would at least give you a working system temporarily until
the issue with your profile is fixed.

A common profile issue is that either your ~/.cache  or ~/.config
directory got corrupt. The safest way to find out is by renaming  the
~/.cache or ~/.config directory, letting it be recreated by logging
out and in again, and trying to manipulate the windows. If all is
well and the ~/.cache directory was the culprit, you can delete the
renamed directory. If all is well and the ~/.config directory was the
culprit, you'll probably want to keep the renamed directory and do
some sleuthing by gradually copying its contents over into the new
~/.config directory one subdirectory or file at a time, logging out
and in after each copy and trying to manipulate the windows each time
until you manage to break it again, which will tell you where the
issue was. Then you'd delete the new ~/.config directory one more
time, log out and in again to recreate it, copy over everything
except the offending subdirectory or file, and log out and in again
one more time to make sure all is well and if it is, delete the
renamed directory.

Last, but not least, I always keep REISUB in my back pocket in case
all else fails. It's a safe way to reboot:

Restart your system safely by very slowly type reisub (waiting a few
seconds after each key-press) while holding down one of these
key-combinations (the first one works on my system):
	* the Alt and SysRq (Print Screen) keys
	* the Alt and Shift and SysRq (Print Screen) keys
	* the Ctrl and SysRq (Print Screen) keys
	* the Ctrl and Shift and SysRq (Print Screen) keys
	* the Ctrl and Alt keys

I think I'm out of ideas beyond that, so if none of those work,
hopefully someone else will chime in here.

-- 
Little Girl

There is no spoon.