Restart Hung Desktop (Cinnamon) in Linux Mint

To restart Cinnamon (if desktop appears to hang)

Option 1

Alt-F2
r

Option 2

Or, Try pressing Alt+F2 and at the prompt type cinnamon --replace and then press Enter.

Option 3

Use the Cinnamon settings applet (it looks like a "^" in your panel) and under "Troubleshoot" you'll find "Restart Cinnamon".

Option 4

If that's not possible for you, then you can exit to a console and restart using the same instructions as for gnome-shell: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/641 (use cinnamon --replace instead as shown below).

Switch to the console using CTRL+ALT+F1 (to switch back to the DISPLAY use CTRL+ALT+F7).

Then, find out which display you're using by using the "w" command:

$ w
 15:23:19 up 23:42,  5 users,  load average: 0.03, 0.11, 0.38
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
clem     tty1                      11:32    8:03  16.14s  0.01s /usr/lib/gnome
clem     pts/0    :1               11:13    4:07m  3.17s  9.61s gnome-terminal
clem     pts/1    :1               11:26    3:52m  2:17   0.27s bash
root     pts/2    :1               12:03   21:53   0.36s  0.36s /bin/bash -i
clem     pts/3    :1               14:56    0.00s  0.39s  0.00s w

In the FROM column you'll see your display. Most of the time it's ":0". In our example above it's ":1".
Export that display from the console using the following command:

$ export DISPLAY=:1.0

(replace 1 with the value of your display of course).
And then restart Gnome Shell from there:

$ cinnamon --replace

Switch back to the DISPLAY using CTRL+ALT+F7 and voila...