Ubuntu/gnome small “Unknown” display box on the top left of my screen

Question

I can't get rid of this box. It's very small and it says "Unknown" in it. It shows up whenever Pingus (a game) crashes from fullscreen, and I have to resize my display manually. Everything seems to work fine otherwise.

How can I get rid of it without rebooting my machine?

Answer 1

You can always use xkill (from a terminal) to get to the owner of a given window.

Answer 2

The box is likely a window related to Pingus. If you can work out what process owns the window then it should be fairly straightforward to get rid of it - just kill the process and the window will disappear. There might be some trial and error involved in deciding which process owns the window, but it seems probable from your description it will be called pingus.

Open up System Monitor, look on the processes tab, select a likely victim and click on End Process. If the box disappears you've chosen wisely ;) You may need to reboot the first time if you end up killing a few processes (if it's not pingus), but as long as you remember the name when you find the correct one your should be fine after that.

Answer 3

The other two answers are likely wrong.

You are seeing an annoying window from MetaCity labeling your monitor, probably in a two monitor system. Yes, these fail to go away. Yes it is a bug.

So, I don't have an answer. I'm looking for it as well.