For all the time I've been using Zorin OS 18 (over a month) I've had unexpected shutdowns of my laptop, and eventually I noticed that it seemed to happen when I was looking at my web Proton Mail page. I've installed the Proton Mail app, and the same has just happened. It's a sudden total shutdown - no warning, no screen dimming, just black screen and dead machine. The battery is now 62%, so not a power problem. Has anyone seen a similar problem, or am I just lucky...? ![]()
I use Protonmail, multiple accounts and have never experienced this...
I also do not use Gnome, though.
I think we can set a specific webpage aside for now and look at more likely targets.
Can you check Logs app or in terminal,
journalctl -b -1
Check your temperatures (You can use something like PSensor)
Check if Hardware Acceleration is enabled in your browser and if so, disable it...
Thanks, Aravisian. I've had a look at the log and I see nothing suggesting a problem. The fans don't make a noise, and the device doesn't feel warm, nor is it struggling with a workload. Unless people say that they have the same problem, I won't waste time pursuing this. It's not serious enough to cause me major problems, so if it happens, it happens.
Thanks for the advice and confirmation that maybe I'm just lucky... ![]()
Edit: In fact it's just blipped out again, also in Firefox, but in a different web page. Maybe Proton Mail just happened to be the current web page on previous shutdowns, just coincidence.
@Aravisian, may I ask for a bit of noob advice which may seem nonsensical? I have seen that there are many desktops available for Linux (XFCE, Cinnamon...) and I wonder if you or other experienced users have any recommendations? Since Proton Mail seems to be my point of failure (it has happened again several times) might a different desktop environment make any difference, or would my problem lie deeper than the desktop within the Linix environment itself?
Yes, I would definitely agree with trying a different Desktop Environment.
Gnome D.E. is quite restrictive.
It is true that trying a different D.E. will come with a learning curve.
And let me clarify: Gnome, as it comes from the source, is ugly. What you see is what Zorin OS did with it, to de-uglify it.
If you install another D.E., you will find it ugly, too.
But, you could avoid some of that by installing Zorin OS Lite and testing how that works for you. Zorin OS 18 Lite is not yet released. But 17.3 is still Good. In some ways, probably better... Since 18 is more GTK4/LibAdwaita restricted.