That was super useful Simon and I have managed to do what you asked in your bullet points. The lack of access occurred at timestamp "Jul 16 10:10" when I opened mousepad, pasted a bunch of text into it and then did Ctrl-C from that text. My ssh access is still alive and the clock is still ticking in Trixie and just to note this is just after a fresh install so nothing additional added at this point. Worth also mentioning that this has been my experience on KDE too.
I have placed a gap in the logs below to indicate that those log entries were post-crash. If you would like these logs in a text file or something else let me know and I will try your vmware tools removal test at some point too. Cheers david@debian:~$ sudo journalctl -f [sudo] password for david: Jul 16 10:06:12 debian systemd[1]: user-106.slice: Consumed 2.224s CPU time, 101.9M memory peak. Jul 16 10:06:16 debian systemd-timesyncd[353]: Contacted time server 194.146.161.122:123 (2.debian.pool.ntp.org). Jul 16 10:06:16 debian systemd-timesyncd[353]: Initial clock synchronization to Wed 2025-07-16 10:06:17.250879 BST. Jul 16 10:06:17 debian systemd[1]: systemd-hostnamed.service: Deactivated successfully. Jul 16 10:06:46 debian sshd-session[1693]: Accepted password for david from 192.168.0.203 port 58412 ssh2 Jul 16 10:06:46 debian sshd-session[1693]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user david(uid=1000) by david(uid=0) Jul 16 10:06:46 debian systemd-logind[743]: New session 4 of user david. Jul 16 10:06:46 debian systemd[1]: Started session-4.scope - Session 4 of User david. Jul 16 10:06:57 debian sudo[1706]: david : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/home/david ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/journalctl -f Jul 16 10:06:57 debian sudo[1706]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by david(uid=1000) Jul 16 10:07:16 debian dbus-daemon[731]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.timedate1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.timedate1.service' requested by ':1.55' (uid=1000 pid=1716 comm="x-www-browser") Jul 16 10:07:16 debian systemd[1]: Starting systemd-timedated.service - Time & Date Service... Jul 16 10:07:16 debian systemd[1]: Started systemd-timedated.service - Time & Date Service. Jul 16 10:07:16 debian dbus-daemon[731]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.timedate1' Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop' unit='xdg-desktop-portal.service' requested by ':1.40' (uid=1000 pid=1716 comm="x-www-browser") Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service... Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.impl.portal.PermissionStore' unit='xdg-permission-store.service' requested by ':1.42' (uid=1000 pid=1788 comm="/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal") Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Starting xdg-permission-store.service - sandboxed app permission store... Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.impl.portal.PermissionStore' Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Started xdg-permission-store.service - sandboxed app permission store. Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.portal.Documents' unit='xdg-document-portal.service' requested by ':1.42' (uid=1000 pid=1788 comm="/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal") Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Starting xdg-document-portal.service - flatpak document portal service... Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.portal.Documents' Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Started xdg-document-portal.service - flatpak document portal service. Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gtk' unit='xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service' requested by ':1.42' (uid=1000 pid=1788 comm="/usr/libexec/xdg-desktop-portal") Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Starting xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service - Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation)... Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.impl.portal.desktop.gtk' Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Started xdg-desktop-portal-gtk.service - Portal service (GTK/GNOME implementation). Jul 16 10:07:17 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:17 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:17 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:17 debian xdg-desktop-portal[1788]: pw.conf: can't load config client.conf: No such file or directory Jul 16 10:07:17 debian xdg-desktop-portal[1788]: pw.conf: can't load config client.conf: No such file or directory Jul 16 10:07:17 debian xdg-desktop-por[1788]: Failed connect to PipeWire: Couldn't create PipeWire context Jul 16 10:07:17 debian dbus-daemon[1299]: [session uid=1000 pid=1299 pidfd=5] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop' Jul 16 10:07:17 debian systemd[1271]: Started xdg-desktop-portal.service - Portal service. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Successfully made thread 1846 of process 1716 owned by '1000' RT at priority 10. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:18 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:19 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:19 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:22 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:22 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:22 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:22 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:22 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:22 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:43 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:43 debian rtkit-daemon[1215]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jul 16 10:07:46 debian systemd[1]: systemd-timedated.service: Deactivated successfully. Jul 16 10:10:47 debian anacron[725]: Job `cron.daily' started Jul 16 10:10:47 debian anacron[2138]: Updated timestamp for job `cron.daily' to 2025-07-16 Jul 16 10:10:47 debian anacron[725]: Job `cron.daily' terminated Jul 16 10:11:07 debian systemd[1271]: tumblerd.service: Consumed 1.276s CPU time, 158.9M memory peak.
