Bug#670097: Extra data point

[John Winters]

I still see this particular phenomenon, using gnome-shell 3.4.2-7.  My X 
display still seems to be working fine, the mouse pointer moves around 
and if left alone the display blanks after the usual timeout, then comes 
back after I move the mouse.  However no key presses or mouse clicks 
seem to register within the desktop.

The one thing I can do is Ctrl-Alt-F1, to switch to a text terminal, log 
in again and do "killall -HUP gnome-shell" which causes gnome-shell to 
exit and re-start and all is going again.

My extra data point is that this is often associated with a flurry (say 
up to a dozen) of notifications from nonsense users popping up at the 
bottom of the screen.

People with names like "squeezybuttocks123 at hotmail.com" wanting 
permission to know when I'm on line.  These appear in a flurry 
immediately after I've re-started gnome-shell.  Could there be some sort 
of cause and effect?

I confess, I don't understand the mechanism by which they arise at all 
(I'm not a user of any social media sites).

John