Thanks for the bug report. This sounds like gnome-shell has crashed and is being restarted:
> Whilst it is blanking, any running applications show their windows (which is not usual) but it appears gnome-shell and the window manager are not running (no dash and no window decorations). When gnome-shell crashes the apps are still running on the bare Xorg server so it looks different. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1881212 Title: Blank Screen initiates then fails To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1881212/+subscriptions _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp

