Zorin OS completely freezing at times after updating to Version 18

Monk · July 3, 2026, 9:17am

As it says in the title, my Zorin OS has been freezing completely since updating to Version 18. I never had freezes like these on Version 17.
To be more accurate, I only experienced freezing on Version 17 when trying to move gigabytes/terabytes worth of files from my NTFS drive over to my new Zorin OS installation after switching, but the freezes on Version 18 are happening mostly when the PC is perfectly idle. The other drive is no longer NTFS and most of the time dismounted, so that can't be the culprit I guess.

I have read through the Freezing issues help page on the Official Zorin OS page, but most of it didn't help:

My Zorin OS is up-to-date, including apt update & upgrade.
Power Mode is on Balanced, didn't help.
My current Nvidia driver for my GPU (1070 Ti) is 580.173.02, released at the end of June 2026.
Since the freezing started after upgrading to Zorin OS 18, I doubt it to be a RAM or Hard Drive issue, so I didn't do any testing yet. (Correct me if I'm wrong about this)
The REISUB key combination is activated, but doesn't work when the system is frozen.
EDIT: Switching between Xorg and Wayland also didn't work out for me.

If anyone else got any solutions, please let me know. That would be greatly appreciated.

Forpli · July 3, 2026, 9:19am

Do you have tried to switch between Xorg and Wayland to see which one runs better? Logout and at login click on your username then a cog wheal appears at the bottom right corner. There you can switch between Xorg and Wayland.

Monk · July 3, 2026, 9:21am

Yes, I have also tried that, it also didn't help.

Forpli · July 3, 2026, 9:25am

Do you have upgraded from Zorin 17 to 18 wuth the integrated upgrader tool? If yes, you could check if you can select an older 6.8 kernel in grub menu > advanced options for Zorin to test if your system freezes when booted with an older kernel.

Ponce-De-Leon · July 3, 2026, 9:42am

Welcome to the Forum!

Are Secure Boot and Fast Boot in BIOS disabled?
Could You post more Hardware Spec please?
Does the Freeze happen when using specific Programs or is it random?
Did You checked with a Tool like psensor or a Gnome Extension like Vitals if the CPU and/or RAM is in full Usage when that happens?

Monk · July 3, 2026, 10:00am

Both Secure and Fast Boot are disabled in my BIOS.
GPU is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 TI, CPU is an AMD Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB of Ram, a 500GB SSD and a 3TB HDD (the HDD is most of the time dismounted, as I stated before.)
The freezes occur at random, mostly when the PC is perfectly idle.
I'm gonna see if Psensor reports something when the system freezes again.

Monk · July 3, 2026, 10:25am

@Forpli I reverted back to the 6.8.0 Kernel and reinstalled my current Nvidia drivers. I'll let you know if I still experience crashes.

Monk · July 7, 2026, 12:04pm

Update: I have downgraded my Kernel back to 6.8.0 no freezes for the last 4 days, until today. Again when the system was idle.
I didn't have Psensor open when the freeze happened, so I couldn't see what the CPU/GPU usage looked like.

Monk · July 7, 2026, 2:23pm

Another Update: Now I caught my PC when it froze. First, the taskbar (including the clock at the corner) and all the windows froze, but the mouse still worked. Then 10 minutes after the initial taskbar freeze, when I attempted the REISUB key combo, it failed and the mouse also froze. Psensor didn't report anything irregular, except for a slightly elevated CPU usage of 33%.

Nourpon · July 7, 2026, 2:32pm

Did you add gnome extensions ? and if yes did you try to disable them ?
Does it happen with all apps, or only when you have nautilus in use ?

Monk · July 7, 2026, 2:38pm

These are all Gnome Extensions I have currently enabled:
gnome-extensions list --enabled
drive-menu@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github(dot)com
user-theme@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github(dot)com
x11gestures@joseexposito.github(dot)io
zorin-appindicator@zorinos(dot)com
zorin-desktop-icons@zorinos(dot)com
zorin-menu@zorinos(dot)com
zorin-printers@zorinos(dot)com
zorin-taskbar@zorinos(dot)com

The only extension I disabled so far was the tilting shell (zorin-tiling-shell@zorinos(dot)com)

Like I said before, the freezes occur at random, mostly when the PC is idle.

Nourpon · July 7, 2026, 3:25pm

mostly or always, does it happen when you are using it ?

Monk · July 7, 2026, 3:27pm

The freezes only happen when I'm away from my PC.

Nourpon · July 7, 2026, 3:37pm

So maybe we can search suspend mode problem...
edit this file

sudo nano /etc/systemd/sleep.conf

Remove “#” at the beginning of the lines above and make this changes

AllowSuspend=no
AllowHibernation=no
AllowSuspendThenHibernate=no
AllowHybridSleep=no

Save the changes and exit the editor (in nano, press CTRL + X, then Y, and Enter)

And in terminal run that

sudo systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target hybrid-sleep.target

Monk · July 7, 2026, 3:47pm

Okay, done.

Nourpon · July 7, 2026, 4:00pm

so let see if it's better...

Monk · July 11, 2026, 7:22pm

Nope, that didn't fix it. Another freeze happened.

Monk · July 11, 2026, 7:46pm

Okay, after opening a Terminal window and executing journalctl -f to see if that reports something, I found out that my boot SSD kept limiting it's link speed and would also sometimes disconnect.

Jul 11 21:37:59 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:02 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:02 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:04 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:04 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:06 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:06 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:09 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:09 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:11 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:11 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:14 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:14 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:16 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:16 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:18 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:18 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:20 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:20 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:23 (...) kernel: ata5: reset failed (errno=-32), retrying in 8 secs
Jul 11 21:38:33 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)
Jul 11 21:38:33 (...) kernel: ata5: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Jul 11 21:38:35 (...) kernel: ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 1 SControl 310)

After removing the side panel on my PC, the messages stopped appearing. I guess my SATA cable didn't like to be squashed in there and perhaps that caused SSD communication errors that would freeze my entire PC? But weird that it only started to happen after upgrading to Zorin OS 18.

Ponce-De-Leon · July 11, 2026, 8:12pm

I took the Freedom to change Your ''mano'' to ''nano'':

Ponce-De-Leon · July 11, 2026, 8:14pm

Did You checked that the Cable sits tight on bot Ends? Maybe look for a Cable with angled Plugs.

Or You could try a different SATA Port to check if maybe the Port has an Issue.