For trying to get back into your computer, as squid_slime mentioned, check the CTRL+ALT+F1, CTRL+ALT +F234567 etc first, and see if you’ve still got any control over the computer.

If you get a terminal, you may be able to run “top” to show you the top processes currently running, then CTRL+C to close top, look at the ID of Cyberpunk (if it’s still running) i.e. 12345, then run “kill 12345”.

After that you may be able to get back to your desktop - may be CTRL+ALT+F7, but could be any of the F keys really. You may have to go back and kill some other wine/steam processes. If the system is fully frozen, this won’t work.

The other thing to look at is to see what the logs say - I can’t remember if Ubuntu includes a log viewer by default these days, but you can easily get one from your Software Centre (or you can rummage around in var/log if you’re into that kind of thing).

Anyway, in a GUI log viewer, you should be able to see some system logs from when the program was shut down (a drop down menu at the top normally lets you select a time period) - these may help for searching i.e. “why has my Nvidia driver fallen off a bus?” rather than “Cyberpunk crashes my computer when it closes” - because the same error will have probably happened with other programs you’re not familiar with.

Also, when I’ve had these crash-on-close in the past, it was quite often an NVidia thing, and it sorted itself out a few updates later.

I found this post on the cd project red site, but it’s not clear if the two people with the same problem ever found a resolution.

https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/pc-crashes-after-closing-game-cyberpunk.11047904/

Glad it’s working! Thanks for the follow-up, for anyone who runs into the same issue in the future.

Make sure Steam is not a Snap package - it’s known from having many issues. When locked, try to switch to tty with ctrl+alt+f3 (or 4, 5,…), login, list processes using ps -aux, find if there are any processes remaining from the game or RED Launcher, try to kill it and go back to desktop (ctrl+alt+f1 or 2) to check if it’s unlocked.

Are you closing the game by selecting the option to quit in the main menu or by closing the window?

Does alt+Ctrl+F* “F1” through to “F4” work? Do you have rt enabled?

This won’t help you recover during a freeze or crash, but it may help find the cause…maybe.

Try running Steam from a terminal, and see if the game gives any output when crashing. I’d put the game in window mode so I can see the terminal and the game at the same time, in-case you lose control over the system. See if the terminal shows any errors.

Usually, when my computer starts to freeze up, it’s because the disk IO is saturated. I moved my Steam library to a different drive than my OS, and that hasn’t happened since. The interface really shouldn’t freeze just because the drive is busy, but that’s what I did to fix it. Don’t know if it’s a GNOME 3 problem, a Fedora problem, or something else.

In response to your update, the individual setting with the program is a sort of “override” to the defaults.

If you go into:

Steam menu at top > settings > compatibility

You should see options for:

• enable steam play for supported titles
• enable steam play for all other titles
• run other titles with [proton 8.0-5]

To the best of my knowledge, any title which is pre-checked by Steam (and has a green tick or whatever) is covered by the first option - this will automatically install and run using the version of Proton it was first confirmed to run with. If it ran fine with Proton 3.0-0 or whatever when it was first tested, it possibly still uses that version. Some certainly get rechecked with newer versions. It’s worth noting this is confirmed to work on Steam Deck (with its AMD graphics) - sometimes the default checked version will not work so well when you play on the desktop.

The second option allows you to set a default Proton version for all other titles - if you’ve not adjusted this, it’s possibly set on an older version.

You can override this on a game by game basis (as you have been doing already) - for example, on some games, steering wheel controllers work on 6.3-8, but not the newer version 7/8 etc. So my default is everything runs on the newest Proton, except I override some driving games to run on an older version.

[Edit]The point of this being, Cyberpunk, as a confirmed working game, will have defaulted to the version which works with the Steam Deck, without you doing anything (Leaving the “run with steam play” unticked) - that version may not be best suited to a desktop/laptop running Nvidia graphics. Changing the version manually overrides the default version… and I hope it’s all working well for you :) [End edit]

There’s a brilliant and in depth guide on the gamingonlinux website, which is definitely worth a read if you’ve got time: Gamingonlinux Steamplay guide