3-finger overview gesture gets stuck on gnome-shell 49.3

[Fringale]

Describe the bug
Since upgrading to gnome-shell 49.3 on my system, the three-finger vertical touchpad gesture used to enter and exit the Activity Overview gets stuck in an intermediate state.

When performing the gesture, swiping up to enter the overview or down to return to the desktop no longer snaps to its final state: the animation stops just before completion and remains indefinitely in a “gesture in progress” state.

While stuck:

• Mouse clicks no longer register.
• Keyboard input continues to work.
• The only way found so far to exit this state is to perform three-finger horizontal swipes, which force the gesture to complete.

The other three-finger vertical gesture (the PaperWM-specific one to switch workspaces) is not impacted by this issue.

No relevant logs appear in journalctl while the shell is in this stuck state.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Make sure to be on gnome-shell 49.3
2. Perform a three-finger vertical swipe to enter the overview
3. Try to end the gesture by swiping down to get back to the desktop

Expected behavior
The gesture snaps back to the desktop.

Actual behavior
The gesture reaches near completion but never snaps, leaving the shell stuck in a partially transitioned state. Further vertical swiping is possible but do not change the outcome.

System information:

Distribution: Aeon (openSUSE Tumbleweed derivative)
GNOME Shell: 49.3
Display server: Wayland
PaperWM version: 49.0.0
Enabled extensions:
- paperwm@paperwm.github.com

Additional context
This is probably related to the recent Gnome Shell gesture handling changes introduced in
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/merge_requests/3997.

The issue is reproducible both with and without the patches.js change introduced in #1106.

[t3dium]

Also encountering this bug, the 3 finger overview gesture causes gnome shell to hang & be unresponsive.

Using alpine, with gnome 49.3.

The only way found so far to exit this state is to perform three-finger horizontal swipes, which force the gesture to complete.

Thanks for mentioning this by the way, good temporary fix for the time being for anyone else who accidentally triggers overview.

[YounesJY]

👋 Another user confirming this issue

I can also confirm this bug on GNOME 49.3/49.4 with PaperWM. Interestingly, I have two separate Linux installations on the same hardware, which allows me to compare:

✅ Working correctly:

· Zorin OS with GNOME 46
· PaperWM works perfectly
· Three-finger overview gesture snaps properly

❌ Broken (this issue):

· PikaOS 4 with GNOME 49.4
· PaperWM version: latest
· Exact same behavior as described:
· Three-finger up gesture gets stuck mid-animation
· Mouse clicks stop working
· Keyboard still works
· Only three-finger horizontal swipe fixes it
· PaperWM workspace switching (vertical) works fine

System details (broken setup):

Distribution: PikaOS 4
GNOME Shell: 49.4
Display server: Wayland
Kernel: 6.19.2-pikaos
Hardware: Dell Latitude E7270
- CPU: Intel Core i5-6300U
- GPU: Intel HD Graphics 520
- RAM: 8GB
PaperWM version: Latest (from extensions.gnome.org)

Additional observations:

· Issue is GNOME version-specific (49+ only)
· Works fine on GNOME 46 (Zorin)
· Confirmed this is related to the gesture changes in GNOME 49
· No relevant errors in journalctl

This is 100% reproducible on my system. Happy to provide more details or test patches if needed.

Search Reddit for this specific title and you'll find a video about that"
"Title: PSA: PaperWM + GNOME 49 = Broken three-finger overview gesture (confirmed)"

[grota]

@YounesJY does it happen to you as well on gnome 49 that only the RIGHT-TO-LEFT three-finger horizontal swipe fixes the stuck animation? (on my system the left to right does not "snap")

[Fringale]

@grota Not YounesJY here but no, on my system (Aeon Desktop / openSUSE Tumbleweed, gnome-shell 49.4) both horizontal gestures can be used to unstuck the animation, including left to right.

For anyone stumbling on this issue either directly from GitHub or from YounesJY's Reddit post, a new version of the extension that should fix this problem has been pushed to the GNOME Extensions repository by the maintainer and is just waiting for review over there (usually pretty quick, a few days at most).

[YounesJY]

@YounesJY does it happen to you as well on gnome 49 that only the RIGHT-TO-LEFT three-finger horizontal swipe fixes the stuck animation? (on my system the left to right does not "snap")
@grota
@Fringale

Nope ! Both the RIGHT-TO-LEFT and LEFT-TO-RIGHT three-finger horizontal swipe fixes the stuck animation (at least for me, that's what I'm using now)

I'll wait until the new release via gnome-extension-manager.

[grota]

A little bit off topic but I finally found out the root cause of the problem I was describing (the left-to-right 3 fingers gesture not "snapping"): the bug appears if the "Horizontal Friction" in the advanced settings is 0, any other value is ok.

More on topic, I am testing the new release (by substituting the code manually) and I can confirm that #1138 fixes this issue (#1137).

[Fringale]

Closing this issue: the PaperWM version fixing this behavior, 49.0.2, is now available from the GNOME Extensions website and the Extension Manager app.