Just installed Zorin 17 for the first time and getting it setup, however quite often (twice in the last hour or so) all my applications (discord, brave, steam) all crash pretty much at the same time (get the force or wait pop up for them) and then a moment or so later my entire screen freezes, originally i force rebooted the device but i found i can also do ctrl+alt+del and return to the login screen and login again, apps all still crashed but dont need a total reboot.
Any ideas how to fix this or even what I should be looking for. While I have just migrated my main desktop to Zorin from Win 11 I do have decent experience with Linux
Switch to Xorg if you use Wayland: Logout and at login click on your username, then a gear icon appears. There you set "Zorin desktop on Xorg".
Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled (that is recommended)?
Is also Fast Startup disabled in Windows if you have dual boot?
Is fractional scaling activated? If so, try turning it off.
Do you use hardware acceleration? Try to turn it off, e.g. in your browser.
Do you have a Nvidia graphics card? Then you could try a different driver (nouveau or nvidia). You can look at Software &Updates if there is another driver offered.
Does this happen when a certain program is open? If so, see if it is installed as a flatpak or snap and you can use a Zorin package instead (you can see which package format you have in the Software Manager).
If you have new, up to date hardware you could install a newer kernel.
As @Forpli said, I would definitely turn off hardware acceleration everywhere it is currently enabled. Sometimes it causes issues like this. Also:
I would recommend not installing these unless absolutely necessary. Generally speaking the open source drivers that come included do pretty much everything (save very few small edge cases) and are usually more up to date as well.
All programs freeze/crash then the whole screen freezes, this includes brave which was pre-installed, I assume flatpak, discord which is a flatpak and steam which is a package. Just been watching youtube and chatting and had no issue, but I load up a game and start playing (Marvel Rivals) and I crash shortly into my game
Your Hardware isn't the newest but maybe a newer Kernel supports it better - especially Your Graphics Card. You could try a newer Kernel. How to install a newer one, You can see here Instructions:
Have you been monitoring temperatures?
I would use active monitoring, like Psensor, and watch if they climb pre-crash.
If you see them heading upwards of 85 degrees, that is a likely culprit.
For the Radeon Pro question; what is your terminal output for:
Ill keep an eye on temps but its happened when the pc has been pretty much idle just downloading on steam, came back from diner and think it had also crashed as it was powered off, wasnt doing anything during that time. Ill look at updating the kernel now