There is a mysterious "erase my work" key somewhere ...
Twice today while happily typing away at a page of abstracts of other folks' websites, once in KomPozer and a second time with my simple text editor, the document simply disappeared when I accidentally hit or mis-hit a key in the lower right-hand quadrant of my Lenovo T420 notebook computer. No "Are you sure ?" popup ... nothing ... just poof. And no recourse at all.
I know all about the Esc key in the upper left hand corner of my keyboard, which I know does exactly that, so I am careful not to rest a left pinkie in that vicinity.
This is a new "destroy everything" key, and I need to know if there is a way of discovering which key it might be.
Any suggestions or analytical procedures would be greatly appreciated.
Twice today ...
Making use of the duplicate entry in the Forum ...
Did some research: Pressing "Esc" doesn't do anything right away, but it does cause a great commotion in RAM.
Then pressing the key in the lower right quadrant (that looks like a folder with the corner folded over) causes the commotion to redouble. Pressing another, similar looking, but with a right arrowhead instead of a left arrowhead, etc. and suddenly my untitled document with "qwerty" as-yet unsaved abruptly disappears from the desktop.
Significantly, if I repeat this thoughtful process with "Psensor" running on the desktop, the RAM commotion does not start, but if that app is minimized to the taskbar, the RAM commotion can be made to restart. Maximizing Psensor then turns off the RAM commotion.
My best guess: the minimized Psensor is causing the problem by using up all available RAM with internal hysteria, causing whatever else is in RAM to crash. Hence, the absence of any warning.
Resolved: Exit Psensor before doing any serious typing.
Psensor does have one important function: When I am using Panorama to assemble a number of separate images, the internal workings such as CPU temperature, fan speed, CPU activity, etc. are the best indicator of where Panorama is in its mysterious workings that result in magically accurate multiple-image scenes.
This sounds too suspicious to be true. I wonder if something else might be happening instead, like maybe the window was moved to another virtual desktop or something. (And pressing escape shouldn't cause anything special. I am pressing it over and over right now and nothing is happening.)
See my edited duplicate Forum entry above jxself's comment.
See my ...
Postscript: I was also running System Monitor on the taskbar, and it could be that it and Psensor are interacting unpleasantly, as both are (were !) monitoring CPU usage.
Are you pressing Ctrl+Right? That switches the workspace to the right. This doesn't close anything, but it would render all windows invisible.
I honestly don't get why, but Trisquel's default setup gives you multiple workspaces without any workspace switcher applet on the panel. You can add one from the panel's right-click menu (and then move it by holding Alt and right-clicking on it).
onpon4 suggested:
"Are you pressing Ctrl+Right?"
Don't think so. But I added that "Click here to start dragging "..." key somewhere" application to the taskbar just in case, and while that mechanism works to park the current workspace somewhere else on the taskbar (and works to get it back !) the "Contr + Right" key combination defeats me. No amount of guessing which key is "Right" has any effect, thank goodness.
In the meantime, an entire day of typing while not looking at the keys did not cause my application to vanish from the desktop ... not even once, now that I banished Psensor to the taskbar (and not behind KomPozer on the desktop) while System Monitor is also on the taskbar.
I think it's a bug that Psensor cannot be trusted to be active while System Monitor is on the taskbar. I'll try it again this morning to see if I can pin down the steps that cause the affliction to arise.
onpon4 suggested:
"Are you pressing Ctrl+Right?"
Don't think so. But I added that "Click here to start dragging "..." key
somewhere" application to the taskbar just in case, and while that mechanism
works to park the current workspace somewhere else on the taskbar (and works
to get it back !) the "Contr + Right" key combination defeats me. No amount
of guessing which key is "Right" has any effect, thank goodness.
In the meantime, an entire day of typing while not looking at the keys did
not cause my application to vanish from the desktop ... not even once, now
that I banished Psensor to the taskbar (and not behind KomPozer on the
desktop) while System Monitor is also on the taskbar.
I think it's a bug that Psensor cannot be trusted to be active while System
Monitor is on the taskbar. I'll try it again this morning to see if I can pin
down the steps that cause the affliction to arise.
Partial success: If gedit is running along with Psensor on the desktop, pressing the Esc key and one of the arrowed keys repetitively (back & forth) in the lower right hand corner of the keyboard causes RAM usage to jump and jump again and again, up to around 80%, but I could not find a combination that would cause a crash. Nothing like this happens if Kompozer is also running.
So the fateful combination today is gedit + Psensor +System Monitor.
While the RAM commotion is going on, raising Kompozer from the taskbar to the desktop instantly squelches the commotion.
Partial success: If gedit is running along with Psensor on the desktop,
pressing the Esc key and one of the arrowed keys repetitively (back & forth)
in the lower right hand corner of the keyboard causes RAM usage to jump and
jump again and again, up to around 80%, but I could not find a combination
that would cause a crash. Nothing like this happens if Kompozer is also
running.
So the fateful combination today is gedit + Psensor +System Monitor.
While the RAM commotion is going on, raising Kompozer from the taskbar to the
desktop instantly squelches the commotion.
At least for me, the GNOME system monitor (I don't remember the command for which it's called upon) has always used most of my RAM. Particularly the usage graphs.
Nowadays I'm not using it. Not because I don't like it, but because I'm using XFCE, and because XFCE has a system monitor panel item that does the measurement but uses less resources.
Here, the "gnome-system-monitor" process takes less than 12 Mio, according to itself. Besides my own programs, I observe that Abrowser always is the application that eats up more space on my system. I opened it some 12 hours ago but it currently renders only Trisquel's forum. Yet it takes more than 500 Mio according to the "System monitor". While rendering more and heavier Web pages, that number significantly grows. Given that I have 8 Gio of RAM (and as much swap), it is OK.
If a system runs out of space (RAM and swap), the kernel kills some process it believes is the culprit. That is what amenex went through. If you run out of RAM but not out of swap, then the system is unbearably slow... but you get to choose what process to kill! I believe amenex has no swap. I would advise for such a partition (or file) for the reason I have just given.
I am a translator!
I use gnome-system-monitor on Xfce for it is better than the Xfce task manager, it has more features, it looks better and it's more lightweight than the Xfce one, it takes 18 mb of RAM here.
I am a translator!
I use gnome-system-monitor on Xfce for it is better than the Xfce task
manager, it has more features, it looks better and it more lightweight than
the Xfce one, it takes 18 mb of RAM here.
Here, the "gnome-system-monitor" process takes less than 12 Mio, according to
itself. Besides my own programs, I observe that Abrowser always is the
application that eats up more space on my system. I opened it some 12 hours
ago but it currently renders only Trisquel's forum. Yet it takes more than
500 Mio according to the "System monitor". While rendering more and heavier
Web pages, that number significantly grows. Given that I have 8 Gio of RAM
(and as much swap), it is OK.
If a system runs out of space (RAM and swap), the kernel kills some process
it believes is the culprit. That is what amenex went through. If you run out
of RAM but not out of swap, then the system is unbearably slow... but you get
to choose what process to kill! I believe amenex has no swap. I would advise
for such a partition (or file) for the reason I have just given.
At least for me, the GNOME system monitor (I don't remember the command for
which it's called upon) has always used most of my RAM. Particularly the
usage graphs.
Nowadays I'm not using it. Not because I don't like it, but because I'm using
XFCE, and because XFCE has a system monitor panel item that does the
measurement but uses less resources.
This sounds too suspicious to be true. I wonder if something else might be
happening instead, like maybe the window was moved to another virtual desktop
or something. (And pressing escape shouldn't cause anything special. I am
pressing it over and over right now and nothing is happening.)
Are you pressing Ctrl+Right? That switches the workspace to the right. This
doesn't close anything, but it would render all windows invisible.
I honestly don't get why, but Trisquel's default setup gives you multiple
workspaces without any workspace switcher applet on the panel. You can add
one from the panel's right-click menu (and then move it by holding Alt and
right-clicking on it).