Possible Chrome/Compositor window management issue on mixed-DPI dual-monitor setup (Wayland?)

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Hello,

I’m evaluating Zorin OS 18.1 as a replacement for a long-term Windows workflow and overall the experience has been surprisingly positive. However, I’ve encountered a recurring issue involving Chrome window management that appears related to compositing, focus, or window stacking behavior.

Problem

Occasionally a Chrome window becomes visually “stuck” between other windows/layers:

  • the title bar becomes inaccessible

  • the window cannot be dragged or focused normally

  • portions of the window appear trapped behind or between UI layers

  • interaction becomes cumbersome or partially broken

  • recovery usually requires indirect workarounds such as:

    • maximizing/minimizing
    • resizing from borders
    • switching workspaces
    • moving the window indirectly

This does not feel like a simple Chrome slowdown or tab overload. It appears more like a compositor/window-management/focus issue.

I also previously experienced a separate full desktop freeze where the graphical session became unresponsive, although the system itself remained alive and accessible via tty3. That made me suspect a possible interaction involving:

  • Chrome GPU acceleration
  • Wayland
  • fractional scaling
  • mixed-DPI compositing

Current testing

I’m currently testing:

  • disabling Chrome hardware acceleration
  • switching from Wayland to X11

System

  • Zorin OS 18.1
  • Intel i7-8565U
  • Intel UHD Graphics 620 (integrated)
  • 16 GB RAM

Display configuration

Dual-monitor setup:

  • LG 27UL500-W — 4K (primary monitor)
  • Samsung S27D360H — 1080p (secondary monitor)

Additional details:

  • fractional scaling enabled
  • mixed-DPI configuration (4K + 1080p)

Workflow characteristics

  • very browser-heavy workflow
  • many Chrome tabs/windows
  • AI tools, Google Docs, Slack, etc.
  • long uptime sessions

Aside from these issues, the overall Zorin experience has actually been very good.

Thanks.

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Quick tip: If you get freezing again, instead of jumping to TTY3, try restarting just the GNOME shell. Since you're on X11, you can do Alt + F2, type r, and hit Enter.

Disabling graphic acceleration in Chrome an excellent idea. Also, in Chrome, right-click the empty space near the New Tab button, and check "use system title bar and borders. The system will handle it better than Chrome does.

Fractional scaling and Zorin are a work in progress. It works better in Wayland than X11, but that's not saying much. X11 on the other hand scales the entire screen globally. If you set 125%, it tells the apps to render larger. Problem is some older apps can't handle it. And when it comes to MULTI monitor setups, X11 cannot handle different scaling factors on different monitors. Your best bet is to stay with "integer" settings: 100% or 200%.

Check your refresh rates between the two monitors. They should be the same.
X11 will try to sync them anyway, sometimes not so successfully, to the lowest speed. It will "tear" and hang the compositor if the two monitors get out of sync. To eliminate that struggle, try setting both monitors to 60Hz in Zorin Display Settings to see if the stability improves.

Does your hardware setup involve an Nvidia card, or are you running on integrated graphics?

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This Usage might be a bit much for Your Hardware. I see You use Intel iGPU. How much RAM did You give to it?

Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled?

If this help would be interesting to know.