Just now, I sat down at my computer, and unsuccessfully attempted to unlock it. But – to my surprise – nothing happened. I could see the Gnome clock ticking away at the top of the screen, so it was neither locked up nor paging something important into memory. After mashing the keyboard and mouse for a few minutes, I was about to REISUO the system. In a last ditch attempt I attempted to switch to virtual terminal 1 (the X Window System runs on terminal 7), then back to Gnome – hoping to reset & reinitialize whatever functions/variables are involved in unlocking Gnome. It worked.
Once again, for others who run into this problem:
- Hold Ctrl + Alt + 1 for a second
- Wait Patiently for the system to initialize the virtual terminal
- Hold Ctrl + alt + 7 for a second
Alexander Riccio 