How to Refresh Desktop in GNOME with a shortcut

Issue

Sometimes the GNOME desktop becomes glitchy or an application freezes, especially in full-screen mode, causing the screen to become unresponsive or visually stuck.

Probable Cause

This issue can be caused by temporary glitches in the GNOME Shell or the window manager, which may freeze or fail to redraw the desktop properly.

Solution

Instead of rebooting or logging out, you can quickly refresh the GNOME Shell to fix the glitch by following these steps:

Press ALT + F2 to open the GNOME command prompt.
Type r and press Enter.

This command restarts the GNOME Shell without closing your applications, effectively refreshing the desktop and resolving many visual glitches or freezes.

This method is faster and more convenient than using terminal commands or rebooting the system.