I've experienced this issue as well. The temporary workaround to resolve it is to drop to tty1, log in and do:
killall -9 gnome-shell This (should have!) the effect of re-loading the GNOME Shell, and everything should start working again. ** Bug watch added: GNOME Bug Tracker #667865 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667865 ** Also affects: gnome-shell via https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667865 Importance: Unknown Status: Unknown -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/869408 Title: gnome-shell hangs when switching to a running VMWare Player Window in Activities menu To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-shell/+bug/869408/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs