Plasma Desktop Keeps Crashing

[Xplorer4x4]

Every so often my plasma desktop will crash for no apparent reason. I dunno if this is related, but on occasion, my system will completely freeze up and all I can do is manually reboot my system with the reboot button on the case. I have checked dmesg, and I see nothing wrong in there, at least nothing that would point to the cause of this. So my next idea was to check .xsession-errors. I see one particular error

StatusNotifierItemSource::refreshCallback: DBusMenu disabled for this application

http://pastebin.com/egdJUadD

Again, not sure if this is related, but I also notice if I try to launch any of the Muon GUI's they crash instantly.

Is this strictly a software issue or could it be a PSU issue(brand new gpu and mobo) as it is around 6 years old. I shouldn't be maxing out by my calculations, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to pick up an upgrade.

[dmeyer]

Every so often my plasma desktop will crash for no apparent reason. I dunno if this is related, but on occasion, my system will completely freeze up and all I can do is manually reboot my system with the reboot button on the case. I have checked dmesg, and I see nothing wrong in there, at least nothing that would point to the cause of this. So my next idea was to check .xsession-errors. I see one particular error

StatusNotifierItemSource::refreshCallback: DBusMenu disabled for this application

http://pastebin.com/egdJUadD

Again, not sure if this is related, but I also notice if I try to launch any of the Muon GUI's they crash instantly.

Is this strictly a software issue or could it be a PSU issue(brand new gpu and mobo) as it is around 6 years old. I shouldn't be maxing out by my calculations, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to pick up an upgrade.

Its not your PSU. I would recommend that you start with

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

. Reboot and tell me if the problem persists.

Could you explain what you mean by freezing? Can you still move your cursor etc? Does only plasma freeze and apps remain responsive?

[Xplorer4x4]

1. Yes the problem is there after apt-get update and such.

2. I mean completely frozen. No movement from anything on the screen at all.

[dmeyer]

1. Yes the problem is there after apt-get update and such.

2. I mean completely frozen. No movement from anything on the screen at all.

Well lock-ups like that always make me think its a video card issue. What video card do you have? What drivers? Does it happen under any other DE?

[Xplorer4x4]

The lock ups happened on my old 4890 using xorg drivers and my new 5770 using AMD proprietary drivers. I also recently changed motherboards.Have not tried other DE's long neough to know. They don't interest me.

[dmeyer]

The lock ups happened on my old 4890 using xorg drivers and my new 5770 using AMD proprietary drivers. I also recently changed motherboards.Have not tried other DE's long neough to know. They don't interest me.

If its happening on two different computers then I am seriously confused especially since you use two different sets of drivers. Well the 4000 series are the best supported graphics card by open source drivers. Anyways, if X is locking up like you are saying on 2 different pcs then there must be some fundamental configuration problem that's probably common to both. I would start with logging out and drop to a tty. Then hit out the following

rm -r ~/.kde4/share/config/

Warning this will wipe all your kde settings.

Log back in and see if the problem occurs again but try not change too many settings. If the problem persists then try this:

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

These are all generic steps which fixes most issues. If this fails, then we can start properly troubleshooting this. ATI/AMD is always a hassle.

[LCWyche]

I notice on my machine that a similar problem occurs with versions 26 and 27 of the the core.

Version 25 works fine. With the others the desktop becomes unusable after about one minute.
More details soon.

LCW

[Xplorer4x4]

If its happening on two different computers then I am seriously confused especially since you use two different sets of drivers. Well the 4000 series are the best supported graphics card by open source drivers. Anyways, if X is locking up like you are saying on 2 different pcs then there must be some fundamental configuration problem that's probably common to both. I would start with logging out and drop to a tty. Then hit out the following

rm -r ~/.kde4/share/config/

Warning this will wipe all your kde settings.

Log back in and see if the problem occurs again but try not change too many settings. If the problem persists then try this:

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

These are all generic steps which fixes most issues. If this fails, then we can start properly troubleshooting this. ATI/AMD is always a hassle.

Not sure it makes a difference but not 2 different PCs per say, simply swapped my old mobo for a newer one(same socket - would normally have done a CPU/Mobo upgrade but didn't have the budget). Same fore the GPU, just swapped it out for a new more efficient GPU as the 4890 was a power drawing beast compared to the 5770.

As for resetting everything, I believe I have tried that before but I may try it again shortly. The freezing has been a very long time issue for me, it is more the crashing that concerns me. Not that I don't want the freezing issue resolved, I do but I been at that for a year with no luck.

I notice on my machine that a similar problem occurs with versions 26 and 27 of the the core.

Version 25 works fine. With the others the desktop becomes unusable after about one minute.
More details soon.

LCW

What core are we talking about?

[dmeyer]

Not sure it makes a difference but not 2 different PCs per say, simply swapped my old mobo for a newer one(same socket - would normally have done a CPU/Mobo upgrade but didn't have the budget). Same fore the GPU, just swapped it out for a new more efficient GPU as the 4890 was a power drawing beast compared to the 5770.

As for resetting everything, I believe I have tried that before but I may try it again shortly. The freezing has been a very long time issue for me, it is more the crashing that concerns me. Not that I don't want the freezing issue resolved, I do but I been at that for a year with no luck.



What core are we talking about?

Well honestly, when everything locks up like that or crashes its almost always a video card driver. Maybe just a reinstall would be easier. 13.04 is out in two odd weeks so you could just try hold out till then.

[Xplorer4x4]

With the 4890, I did multiple clean install of Precise and Quantal.

[dmeyer]

With the 4890, I did multiple clean install of Precise and Quantal.

Damn and its not exactly as if its bleeding edge hardware that a new kernel will fix. I think its best that the real gurus come along and help you further because the next steps will probably involve X and I have very little knowledge on that. Do these problems arise on other distros such as openSUSE 12.3? You could always spin up a live cd and see if you still have issues just to see if this might be something Ubuntu specific.

[Xplorer4x4]

Oh and when it comes to clean installs, after getting the new mobo and GPU in, which were like a week or two apart, I did a clean install of Quantal. However, I did copy over most, if not all of the /etc/apt directory(thought I would mention this since you mentioned apt earlier). I noticed it does cause a problem with bash autocompletition when I try to do sudo apt-get install abc(abc being 3 letters of a package name, say pla for plasma widgets). If I do apt-get clean and apt-get auto-clean then bash autocompletion function is restored for maybe 24 hours..

[Snowhog]

...I did copy over most, if not all of the /etc/apt directory...

You need to review the sources.list file and any .list file in /etc/apt/sources.d/ and ensure that they all reference quantal as the release. If you find any other release referenced, you need to correct them to quantal. This could be the cause of your issues.

[Xplorer4x4]

Now that you mentioned it, one of the PPAs, not sure which one off hand, does not have a build for quantal, so I changed it to precise. Off hand I dont think a build is offered in the official repos so the PPA is the only way other then compiling from source which I prefer to avoid.

[LCWyche]

I clean installed Kubuntu 13.10, dual booted with windows 7. In GRUB 2 I now have 3 choices, core 3.5.0 - 25, 26, 27.

25 runs fine. With 26 and 27 it is as if the GUI is incompatible in some respect.
The display breaks down, images persist, and it quickly becomes unusable and switch off is the only resort.