[SOLVED] Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

[Siebren]

Hello,

After upgrading from Kubuntu 10.04 to 10.10, windows no longer have title bars for me.

Looking at System Settings -> Workspace Appearance -> Window Decorations tells me:
Cannot load library /usr/lib/kde4/kcm_kwindecoration.so (*snip* undefined symbol *snip*)

Possible reasons:
* an error occurred during your last KDE upgrade leaving an orphaned control module
* you have old third party modules lying around

Both of these are possible (upgraded just before, and I have played with emerald/compiz) earlier

In addition, System Settings -> Workspace Appearance -> Desktop Effects (general) informs me that:

Desktop effects are not available on this system due to the following technical issues: Required X extensions (XComposite and XDamage) are not available.

Compositing State:
Desktop effects are active (suspend does not appear to do anything here).

Finally, doing:
kwin --replace
Gives:
kwin: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/kde4/libkdeinit/libkdeinit4_kwin.so: undefined symbol: _ZTI19KDecorationUnstable

I have a feeling some packages are messed up somewhere, but googling around did not result in anything helpful.

In my /etc/X11/xorg.conf, I have:

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
Option "DAMAGE" "true"
Option "RENDER" "true"
EndSection

But from /var/log/Xorg.0.log I learn:
[ 23.499] (**) Extension "Composite" is disabled

I am not sure if and how all of these are related, but I would like to fix this of course. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[Snowhog]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

Open a console and type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -f
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Any 'broken' packages should be pulled in/installed. Let us know.

[Siebren]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

Hello Snowhog,

sudo apt-get update

(works without problems)

sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[Siebren]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

The Desktop effects problems are gone from tinkering with the settings. I now get:

[ 23.220] (**) Extension "Composite" is enabled
[ 23.220] (**) Extension "DAMAGE" is enabled
[ 23.220] (**) Extension "RENDER" is enabled

The main problem remains: window decorations do not work. BTW, this is not purely cosmetic, I can not move, minimize or resize windows. This basically means that I cannot realistically have more than 1 GUI program running at the same time.

[Snowhog]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

Okay, so no issues with installed packages. That's a good thing.

In the console, type:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

[dibl]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

In a konsole window, try

kwin --replace

What error output do you see?

[Siebren]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/27.7kB of archives.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 403566 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace kubuntu-desktop 1.205 (using .../kubuntu-desktop_1.205_amd64.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement kubuntu-desktop ...
Setting up kubuntu-desktop (1.205) ...


I do not see different behavior since this (I went back to system settings and tried logging out and in again).



kwin --replace
kwin: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/kde4/libkdeinit/libkdeinit4_kwin.so: undefined symbol: _ZTI19KDecorationUnstable


(modified to mention that the reinstallation of kubuntu-desktop did not appear to help)

[Snowhog]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

Were/are you using/running Compiz as your windows manager? What graphics card are you using?

[dibl]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

My google-foo isn't helping much. I found the same bug reported here in German: http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/de.../#post-2667596

But no solution is stated. It would appear that it happens when switching back to kwin after having installed and used compiz. I would advise making a study of that file where the "symbol lookup" is failing: /usr/lib/kde4/libkdeinit/libkdeinit4_kwin.so

Is that file essential to run KDE 4.5 and kwin? If not, it could be renamed or deleted.

[Siebren]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

I had compiz installed at some point, but never did a very clean install of it. It is definitely possible that some things were left over, however:

aptitude search compiz
p compiz - OpenGL window and compositing manager
p compiz-core - OpenGL window and compositing manager
v compiz-core-abiversion-20091102 -
p compiz-dev - OpenGL window and compositing manager - development files
p compiz-fusion-bcop - Compiz Fusion option code generator
p compiz-fusion-plugins-extra - Collection of extra plugins from OpenCompositing for Compiz
p compiz-fusion-plugins-main - Compiz Fusion plugins - main collection
p compiz-gnome - OpenGL window and compositing manager - GNOME window
p compiz-kde - OpenGL window and compositing manager - KDE window
p compiz-plugins - OpenGL window and compositing manager - plugins
p compizconfig-backend-gconf - Compiz Fusion configuration system - gconf backend
p compizconfig-backend-kconfig - KConfig Settings library for plugins - OpenCompositing
p compizconfig-settings-manager - Compiz configuration settings manager
v gcompizthemer -
p libcompizconfig0 - Settings library for plugins - OpenCompositing Project
p libcompizconfig0-dev - Development file for plugin settings - OpenCompositing Proje
p python-compizconfig - Compizconfig bindings for python

Which I take to mean that installed packages are all removed now.

lspci tells me:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G84 [GeForce 8600 GT] (rev a1)
(which is correct)

and according to System I am using the current proprietary driver for nVidia (nvidia-glx-185?)


In reply to dibl:
If my C/C++ understanding is correct, than some program (kwin?) was linked against this library and then a function call or a definition went wrong (different versions of libraries?).
However, I see a similar error, with a different shared object in the window decorations systems settings panel.
This led me to believe that there is a problem with more than just one file, so I came here asking for a perhaps broken upgrade (broken dependencies or something similar).

[dibl]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

I googled the name of the file, "libkdeinit4_kwin.so", and turned up some recent bug reports:

http://old.nabble.com/-Bug-256037--N...d30130763.html

http://old.nabble.com/-Bug-255351--N...d30061575.html

and some not so recent:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=513721

http://www.mail-archive.com/debian-q.../msg29741.html

The Nvidia driver version you are using is NOT the current released version: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122606

however I have no idea whether updating the driver would have any effect on the error. It is a fact that the driver provides compositing, and it appears to be a compositing problem.

[Siebren]

Re: Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

OK, I have solved the problem.

I did the following:

sudo aptitude remove kdelibs5

This told me amongst other that the following packages should be removed:

Remove the following packages:
1) kgrubeditor
2) kvkbd
3) kwin-kde4

Especially the 3rd one is interesting. Then I just reinstalled the kubuntu desktop package:
sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop

Which did not reinstall kwin-kde4:
The following NEW packages will be installed:
kdelibs5{a} khelpcenter4 kubuntu-desktop kvkbd plasma-widget-folderview

kwin --replace
And after that, everything is back to normal.

Thanks for your time, I hope this helps somebody else as well.

[Guest]

Re: [SOLVED] Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

Thank you for:
1 persisting until you figured this out and
2 posting your solution here.

I had pretty much the identical problem and your method fixed my broken upgrade. I've been pulling my hair out trying to get it straightened out.

The only things I did differently were to use sudo -i to get a persistent root shell and use apt-get throughout. I got slightly different results from the intermediate steps. I also changed the final step to

apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

because I don't understand how kdelibs5 and kubuntu-desktop fit together.

But mostly, just thanks a lot!

[Siebren]

Re: [SOLVED] Kwin window decorations broken after upgrade

You're welcome, thanks for letting me know.