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What is the name of the gnome app that searches for applications when I hit the windows/super key? It crashed, I would like to restart it

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djfm

There seems to be an annoying bug on my installation of Ubuntu 21.10: the very convenient tool that searches for applications when you press the windows/super key seems to crash quite often.

It will work fine for a few hours and then suddenly stop working:

example of an unsuccessful search

In the screenshot above I'm trying to bring up a terminal but the screen stays black.

The only way I have found to restore the normal behavior of this search bar is to log-out and then log back in, but that's really inconvenient because I have tons of windows open and applications running for my work and setting everything back up makes me waste a lot of time.

I don't know how to go about debugging this since I don't even know the name of the app responsible for performing this search. Maybe just restarting that program would solve my issue? Anybody knows what this search program is called? Any clues why it would crash so consistently?

As requested in the comments by @heynnema:

ls -al ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
total 24
drwxrwxr-x 6 djfm djfm 4096 nov.   9 09:36 .
drwx------ 4 djfm djfm 4096 nov.  26 11:16 ..
drwxrwxr-x 3 djfm djfm 4096 nov.  25 18:56 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 5 djfm djfm 4096 oct.  25 14:18 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 5 djfm djfm 4096 oct.  11 17:55 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 4 djfm djfm 4096 oct.  10 18:05 gTile@vibou

And:

ls -al /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions
total 152
drwxr-xr-x 38 root root 4096 nov.   5 16:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 oct.  16 17:17 ..
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  16 17:04 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 freon@UshakovVasilii_Github.yahoo.com
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 gnome-shell-trash-extension
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 multi-monitors-add-on@spin83
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 TilixDropdown@[email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  16 17:04 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 oct.  16 17:53 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 oct.  27 07:18 [email protected]
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heynnema avatar
ru flag
heynnema
Edit your question and show me `ls -al ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions` and `ls -al /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions`. Start comments to me with @heynnema or I'll miss them.
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us flag
djfm
@heynnema thanks, question edited with the output of the commands requested
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heynnema avatar
ru flag
heynnema
Status please...
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Score:0
heynnema avatar Ubuntu
ru flag
heynnema

Holy **** batman... you've got way too many gnome-shell extensions... any one that could cause problems.

Using the Extensions app, or gnome-tweaks, or https://extensions.gnome.org/local/, disable ALL extensions except for these...

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Reboot. Then retest. If it works, enable one extension at a time and look for compatibility issues. Better yet, get rid of most of your extensions, and only keep 4-6 of them installed/enabled that you really need.

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us flag
djfm
Sorry for the delay, deactivating the extensions was not enough, I had to uninstall all of them and then only keep dash to dock, advanced alt tab window switcher and the thing for clipboard history. The problem seems to have disappeared for good. Strange that even disabled extensions can cause issues though. Thanks for the help!
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heynnema avatar
ru flag
heynnema
@djfm Good news! The trick is to restart gnome-shell after disabling various extensions. ALT-F2, then "r", then ENTER.
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Score:0
vanadium avatar Ubuntu
cn flag
vanadium

The program that implements this search screen is Gnome Shell. The executable to launch it is gnome-shell. You can learn about the command line options through man gnome-shell.

Gnome Shell may run on the Wayland display server (default in Ubuntu 21.10) or on the venerable Xorg display server. When running on Wayland, the only way to reset Gnome Shell is to log out, then back in. When runnning on Xorg, you can restart Gnome Shell by opening the command prompt (Alt+F2), then typing r and hitting Enter.

This search screen should be very stable. Instability of Gnome Shell can be caused by custom Gnome Shell extensions. If you did install custom extensions, disable them all, log out and then back in. Very likely, the problem will be gone. Then re-enable them one by one until the problem reappears.

If extensions are not the issue, then issues with the graphical driver may be the issue. There, running Wayland or Xorg may already make a difference. You can move to another display server, click the cog wheel on the login screen after selecting your name, but before entering the password. You can now select different sessions, including sessions on Wayland and sessions on Xorg.

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us flag
djfm
thank you, I will try Xorg first because I don't have much time right now and then I'll try to narrow down the issue if it's caused by an extension
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