[PLASMA 5] Plasma 'black screens'

[sparxz]

Hi, guys.
Posting this from phone.
On kde Plasma 5.16.5.
After login screen to plasma, screen goes black.
Can ctrl-esc to get to terminal within the F1.
Tried loads of way to reset config of KDE plasma from terminal, but no joy.
Any thought on how to get a successful reset ?
Thanks.

[GreyGeek]

Check ownership of ~/.Xauthority. If it is root then make yourself the owner.

[sparxz]

Checked, and my user account Xauthority file is the correct user and not root.
Booting into plasma icons appear very briefly, but no other element of plasma.
Also every restart using "kstart5 plasmasshell", then goes black again.
alt + tab still switches application windows(on black/blank kde/).
Any other way of resettting configs ?
Thanks

[GreyGeek]

Well, now we'll have to go back to fundamentals. What is your GPU chip?

[Snowhog]

Try reinstalling plasma-desktop.

Sudo apt install --reinstall plasma-desktop

[sparxz]

Thinkpad x260 & GPU is Intel HD Graphics 520.
Thanks.

[sparxz]

Tried

sudo apt install --reinstall plasma-desktop

No change after reboot and re-login to check.

Thanks.

[GreyGeek]

See this site: https://01.org/linuxgraphics
But, that is a rather odd GPU and I wouldn't get too excited about finding a driver for it.
The i915 might work, but you may have to compile your own kernel:
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/co...y_all_new_x60/

INTEL VIDEO
Intel video suffers from a number of annoying bugs (including bad xserver screen flicker) in the default Jessie install and too fix them correctly we need to create our own backports out of Sid.

First get all of the build dependencies for the
sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-intel/sid xserver-xorg-video-intel-dbg/sid
sudo apt-get -b source xserver-xorg-video-intel/sid xserver-xorg-video-intel-dbg/sid
There will be two packages you will now need to install using dpkg -i (if there are any unstatisfied deps, you will need those as well).
If you want the best possible video experience, you will want to use kernel modesetting. To do this, edit the /etc/default/grub file with your favorite editor and add the following:
video=i915:modeset=1
To the end of the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX= line. Then run:
sudo update-grub
Restart and your video configuration should be working well.

All in all, it doesn't look like an easy install and setup.

[jlittle]

I would try adding another user with the adduser command. (You can use man adduser to get the options right.) Then, does the plasma blackness occur for that user? If not, there's something in your home directory giving grief, perhaps in .local or .config.

If it affects the new user, a backup might be "a very good idea". A restore from backup or a reinstall might be the quickest solution. (More times than I like to recall, I've persisted trying to fix things, well beyond the point where going back to a recent snapshot, a restore from a backup, or a reinstall would have been the easiest route.) If you do reinstall, you might be able to do a "dirty" reinstall, keeping your present home directory.

Also, I think you've got a plasmashell crash; starting it with just "plasmashell &" might give a clue as to the problem. If it complains "can't find display", try DISPLAY=:0 plasmashell &