#1848·rnote

Rnote freezes the zoom and/or crashes randomly

Author: cyperionCreated Sep 8, 2026Updated Sep 14, 2026

Describe the bug
During excessive usage Rnote randomly stops responding to zoom gestures and even crashes sometimes (even taking the GNOME shell down with it sometimes!) NOTE: There may be multiple different issues involved.

To Reproduce

  1. Open a Document
  2. Begin to write with Stylus
  3. Switch between colors/tools and press the stylus keys until the bug is observed. (Yes I know this is a very vague description, but i am still actively trying to find patterns in the occurrence of this behavior and will clarify once I know.)

Expected behavior
When I am writing with my Stylus on my covertible laptop, the app sometimes starts to stop taking zooming gestures. After that, writing and switching tools/color still works. To get the ability to zoom back, i always try these things in this order until it is responding again:

  • Open GNOME dash
  • Minimize Rnote
  • Move Rnote to the next workspace
  • Close Rnote and open it again I don't know which of these steps really fixes the behavior because it is different every time. Also sometimes it is cut short by the app just not responding at all and then crashing directly a few seconds later.

Console Output
I only have a systemctl coredump log because i can't replicate the bug.

log.txt

EDIT: I have run bash RUST_BACKTRACE=1 RUST_LOG=rnote=debug rnote and when the GNOME shell crashed, I got Gdk-Message: 12:45:39.245: Lost connection to Wayland compositor.. There were no other debug messages except for rnote::canvas: event=DebouncedEvent {...} and rnote_engine::store: State has not changed, nothing to record

Desktop (please complete the following information):

  • OS: Arch (updated around 6. 9. 2026)
  • Rnote v0.14.2
  • Arch repositories (extra)
  • GNOME 50 with Mosaic tiling extension
  • Wayland
  • Touchscreen and Stylus (HP MPP2.0 MultiPen)

Additional context
Possibly relevant: The first Stylus buttons on the MPP Pen works (Eraser), the second one just does the same thing as the first one. While the button is held down, changing the tool will always switch to that tool from now on when using the button. Notably, the setting of "Stylus Primary action" is not changed. This is particularly annoying, for example when switching from erasing with releasing the button and then clicking the shape tool too fast causes the button to activate the shape tool instead of the eraser from now on.