Troubleshooting

What to do when the NUC becomes unresponsive or otherwise poorly behaved? Let's explore a few scenarios.

A Freeze

Symtom: The application you were working with is unresponsive.

What to Try

• Wait a minute. Your computer may just need a little time to think. Whatever you do, don't start frantically clicking everywhere trying to get a response. This only puts more burden on system resources likely already strained. Waited long enough? Let's move on...
• See if you can move the cursor. If you can, the freeze may be limited to one app. See if you can open the terminal. If you can, type 'xkill' without apostrophe marks in the terminal and hit enter. You will notice a change in the cursor. Now you can move the cursor over any unresponsive window and simply click to kill the app. Unfortunately you'll loose any unsaved work. Your computer is now usable but you might want to save any work you are able to and restart the computer.
• See if you can bring up a text console.
  Press the Ctrl, Alt, Fn(1-7) keys. You may have to try a few combinations to find one that works, for example Ctl --> Alt --> F6. If successful you'll see a blank screen very similar to the terminal except it occupies the entire screen. You may have to hit the enter key to get a prompt. If asked for login, enter your username, ie, "m", hit enter and then enter the password. You should then see the usual terminal prompt, ie, 'm@Astara$. Once logged in you can type 'shutdown -r now' without apostrophes to safely reboot the computer or 'shutdown -h now' to safely shutdown.

. Whenever possible, it is recommended that you use these methods instead of doing a hard shutdown (steadily holding down the power button to completely power off the system). If there is no other option but a hard shutdown you may notice the computer taking a little longer than usual the next time you turn it on. Be patient. It needs this time to make necessary repairs.