Plasma crashing

[SteveRiley]

It's happened twice today, and has happened with disturbing regularity for a few weeks now.

Here's what showed up in /var/log/apport.log after the first one:

ERROR: apport (pid 8777) Mon Jun 24 10:10:03 2013: called for pid 9089, signal 11, core limit 0
ERROR: apport (pid 8777) Mon Jun 24 10:10:03 2013: executable: /usr/bin/nepomukserver (command line "/usr/bin/nepomukserver")
ERROR: apport (pid 8777) Mon Jun 24 10:10:03 2013: gdbus call failed, cannot determine running session: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/usr/bin/gdbus'
ERROR: apport (pid 8777) Mon Jun 24 10:10:03 2013: apport: report /var/crash/_usr_bin_nepomukserver.1000.crash already exists and unseen, doing nothing to avoid disk usage DoS

And the second:

ERROR: apport (pid 5262) Mon Jun 24 15:01:21 2013: called for pid 3025, signal 11, core limit 0
ERROR: apport (pid 5262) Mon Jun 24 15:01:21 2013: executable: /usr/bin/plasma-desktop (command line "/usr/bin/plasma-desktop --nocrashhandler")
ERROR: apport (pid 5262) Mon Jun 24 15:01:21 2013: gdbus call failed, cannot determine running session: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/usr/bin/gdbus'
ERROR: apport (pid 5262) Mon Jun 24 15:01:23 2013: wrote report /var/crash/_usr_bin_plasma-desktop.1000.crash

I've never poked around in /var/crash before. Take a look:

steve@t520:~$ [B]ll /var/crash[/B]
total 39052
drwxrwxrwt  2 root  root      4096 Jun 24 15:01 ./
drwxr-xr-x 12 root  root      4096 Jun 24 10:10 ../
-rw-rw----  1 root  root         0 Jun 24 10:10 .lock
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve   788282 Jun 22 20:18 _usr_bin_nepomukserver.1000.crash
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve  1632892 Jun 24 15:01 _usr_bin_plasma-desktop.1000.crash
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve 35662394 Jun 16 22:11 _usr_bin_rekonq.1000.crash
-rw-r-----  1 root  root   1891384 Jun 21 09:25 _usr_lib_vmware-installer_2.1.0_vmis-launcher.0.crash

Damn, 35 MB of Rekonq crashes?

Anyway, I indeed have no such file /usr/bin/gdbus. apt-file tells me it's part of the package libglib2.0-bin. This package is not presently installed on my machine. Hmm...it's part of the kubuntu-desktop task, wonder where mine went? The following packages depend on it:

steve@t520:~$ [B]apt-cache rdepends libglib2.0-bin[/B]
libglib2.0-bin
Reverse Depends:
  lightdm
  wallch
  ubuntu-gnome-default-settings
  packagekit
  gdm
  unity
  ubuntu-settings
  python-ubuntu-sso-client
  lightdm
  libglib2.0-dev

None of these are installed on my machine. I'm no fan of LightDM, so I remove it and use KDM instead. And here's why I don't have it. From one of the archived logs in /var/log/apt:

Start-Date: 2013-04-14  14:18:39
Commandline: apt-get --purge autoremove
Purge: libglib2.0-bin:amd64 (2.34.1-1ubuntu1)
End-Date: 2013-04-14  14:18:41

Is the crash caused by the absence of gdbus? Or does something in Apport need gdbus but Apport isn't declaring the dependency? Dunno. But I'm installing libgdbus2.0-bin to see what might happen after.

[kubicle]

To me that looks like apport failure to gather data, and not the cause for the original software crashes. Missing depends on apport or bad usage of hard-coded gdbus call.

I've never had apport installed, though, so this is just a "semi-educated" guess.

EDIT: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...t/+bug/1102000

[Shimapan]

The main file for libglib is libglib2.0-0. When you take a look at libglib2.0-0 in Synaptic, you'll get a *huge* list of applications which are using it: libqtgui4, konqueror-nsplugins, amarok, kipi-plugins, libqtwebkit...
So if the libglib files (libglib2.0-0, libglib2.0-bin, libglib2.0-data) got corrupt or are missing, crashes are quite likely. Try re-installing those three packages.

[SteveRiley]

To me that looks like apport failure to gather data, and not the cause for the original software crashes. Missing depends on apport or bad usage of hard-coded gdbus call.

I'm inclined to agree. I had no crashes today; I should try to give Plasma a rigorous workout tomorrow just see if I can make something bad happen.

The main file for libglib is libglib2.0-0. When you take a look at libglib2.0-0 in Synaptic, you'll get a *huge* list of applications which are using it: libqtgui4, konqueror-nsplugins, amarok, kipi-plugins, libqtwebkit...

libglib2.0-0 and libglib2.0-data were already installed. I will wait before reinstalling them...I want to try to catch one of these crashes in the act.

[Guest]

hi, I found a solution and posted it on my blog... it is sockets related don't worry it has a fix

please let me know if it fixed the crash and thank you.

[Guest]

now I'll give you the link, cause it wasn't letting me do it.

POST TO FIX, it is sockets related

please let me know if it fixed the problem... also check the calculator plugin

[SteveRiley]

Thank you for this. However, I suspect it won't help.

Your recommendation is:

By moving all the files from ~/.kde/socket-MYHOST/ to whatever folder I created just to rollback changes if nothing happened and running back plasma-desktop all came back to normality.

The subdirectory ~/.kde/socket-$(hostname) is symlinked to /tmp/ksocket-$USER. Observe:

steve@t520:~$ [B]ll ~/.kde[/B]
total 24
drwx------  6 steve steve 4096 Sep 16  2012 ./
drwxr-xr-x 46 steve steve 4096 Jul 26 19:37 ../
drwxrwxr-x  2 steve steve 4096 Jun  1 20:01 Autostart/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 steve steve   23 Sep 16  2012 cache-t520 -> /var/tmp/kdecache-steve/
drwxr-xr-x  2 steve steve 4096 Nov 14  2012 env/
drwx------  7 steve steve 4096 Sep 16  2012 share/
drwxr-xr-x  2 steve steve 4096 Jan 23  2013 shutdown/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 steve steve   18 Sep 16  2012 [COLOR="#B22222"][B]socket-t520 -> /tmp/ksocket-steve/[/B][/COLOR]
lrwxrwxrwx  1 steve steve   14 Sep 16  2012 tmp-t520 -> /tmp/kde-steve/

On my machine, /tmp is mounted as tmpfs, which means it's stored only in RAM and destroyed/recreated upon each reboot. Furthermore, this subdirectory is probably created anew anyway, even if /tmp isn't changed from the default. I will check.

EDIT: Yes, those socket pointers are created upon each restart. So the Plasma crash (which is still ongoing for me) is because of something else. Plamsa always restarts fine, and the crash never takes down any applications, so I'm not bothered enough to investigate thoroughly yet. Maybe it'll just go away when 13.10 releases.

[SteveRiley]

I'm almost certain that I'm experiencing KDE bug 311871. I hadn't really thought of it when I first created this thread, but have noticed now that a crash happens only in conjunction with a notification. Not every notification, of course; but there have been no crashes that didn't accompany a notification.

Comment 92 doesn't bode well for a quick fix:

've read elsewhere it's a code path issue in Qt that KDE 4.10+ triggers that wasn't triggered in the past and could require a significant rewrite of Qt to fix. Also doesn't seem to happen on either system with compositing disabled, but I like my eye candy

I will try the workaround suggested in comment 116:

Unfortunately, there is no fix. It is not even clear if the bug is in QtDeclarative, or in the notification applet. The only workaround for now (besides removing the notifications applet) would be to use the applet from KDE 4.9 version, which does not use QtDeclarative.

To do this, it looks like I will need to find a version of kde-runtime that predates QtDeclarative, extract knotify4, and replace the existing binary in /usr/bin. I'll do that later.

[kubicle]

You could try 'colibri' notifications (if you can live with passive notifications for the time being), and remove the default notification applet from the tray.
Colibri, after installation can be configured in SystemSettings>Notifications>Colibri

[SteveRiley]

I will give that a try, thanks. Rather than completely remove KNotify, I've configured it not to display application notifications. Sometimes I interact with the file transfer and job notifications, which I don't think have been the types that cause Plasma crashes. We'll see how it goes.

[GreyGeek]

Steve, "03:32AM"? :shock:
Have you given up sleeping?

[SteveRiley]

Time zones, Jerry. I'm two hours behind you.

[kubicle]

I will give that a try, thanks. Rather than completely remove KNotify, I've configured it not to display application notifications. Sometimes I interact with the file transfer and job notifications, which I don't think have been the types that cause Plasma crashes. We'll see how it goes.

That'll probably work fine, provided that job notifications won't crash your plasma. I don't think colibri handles job notifications at all (if you only have colibri for notifications, job notifications are shown as dialogs)...but you can use the default notification applet for those if you prefer.

[Snowhog]

My HP Pavilion g7-1070us 64-bit i3 laptop

paul@tanagra:/var/crash$ ls -la
total 228
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   4096 Aug 18 07:41 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root   4096 Aug 17 20:27 ..
-rw-r-----  1 root root 224818 Aug 17 20:27 _usr_sbin_cupsd.0.crash

My Toshiba Satellite P105-S6147 32-bit Dual-core T2060 laptop

paul@tanagra2:/var/crash$ ls -la
total 8
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 Apr 15 19:02 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Aug 17 20:27 ..

Like I've said oh so many times, I have very stable systems.

[SteveRiley]

Like I've said oh so many times, I have very stable systems.

Then you must be doing something wrong!

steve@t520:~$ ll /var/crash
total 50520
drwxrwxrwt  2 root  root      4096 Aug 18 11:31 ./
drwxr-xr-x 12 root  root      4096 Aug 18 12:22 ../
-rw-------  1 root  root    274035 Aug 14 17:24 libfuse2.0.crash
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve  9731968 Aug 14 21:06 _usr_bin_everpad-provider.1000.crash
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve 36521986 Aug 13 11:35 _usr_bin_plasma-desktop.1000.crash
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve   793927 Aug 16 20:22 _usr_lib_postgresql_9.1_bin_postgres.1000.crash
-rw-r-----  1 root  root   2048049 Aug 15 18:53 _usr_lib_vmware-installer_2.1.0_vmis-launcher.0.crash
-rw-r-----  1 steve steve  2346531 Aug 13 08:50 _usr_share_veromix_dbus-service_veromix-service-qt.py.1000.crash