Post 8.10 upgrade application instabilities/crashes

[jstalnak]

After my upgrade from a new KDE4.x 8.04 system running for one week, to 8.10 (on a Dell 9150/dual core system, ATI Radeon graphics, 2Gb RAM, 80 Gb HD), I am experiencing repeated application crashes. The apps are not completely random, though that may be because I have a limited number of apps that I use on a daily basis. Here's my typical setup:

Desktop 1 - Konsole
Desktop 2 - Thunderburd/Firefox
Desktop 3 - Oracle Calendar Motif client
Desktop 4 - Amarok
All desktops - Pidgin, gkrellm, kdm/plasma/panel/weather app

And that's basically it. I often run an editor either locally or remotely (kate/nedit/gvim). I sometimes run OpenOffice Word/Spreadsheet. I sometimes run k3b for burning/ripping a cd. Sometimes I run konqueror/Opera if I'm looking at different web sites for whatever reason.

The issue is usually with some of the all the time apps not the some of the time apps :-) The three I'm having the most problems with are Thunderbird 2.x, Firefox 3.x, and kdm/plasma. These apps are crashing multiple times per *day* (well, plasma is better than TB/FF). If Plasma dies, I do get the KDE system crashhandler dialog. But if TB or FF crash, they simply disappear. I'm not doing anything odd (running videos in a FF window from YouTube) so far as I can tell. Click on a menu and, blip, they're gone. No core, no nothing. I have not modified the xorg.conf file.

Does anyone have any clue what I can do to get these apps more stable? I'm using the installs that are part of the Ibex distribution via Synaptic/APT (I very much dislike the new Adept gui).

[CVPunk]

Re: Post 8.10 upgrade application instabilities/crashes

hmm... sounds weird.

have you tried maybe running autoclean and autoremove, then doing an update/upgrade?
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Hopefully that will help.
Maybe there are just some problems with old KDE dependencies or something.

[Fintan]

Re: Post 8.10 upgrade application instabilities/crashes

I am just guessing, but I think I remember there were some problems with upgrading from the 8.04 remix (kde4.0) to II (8.10). I don't even think that upgrading from the remix was meant to be.
a lot of things were broken in the remix version and probably get inherited during upgrade.
But of course I may be wrong.
Upgrading from 8.04 kde3.5.10 to II went fine on my machines, and most others I have heard from.

My only suggestions:
1) boot from a live cd (II) anvigate to your /home/username and rename .kde (hidden file) to .kdeOld.

Reboot into your system and see if it works. .kde will be rebuilt and you will have to reconfigure the desktop.
If your apps behave then you can copy your kontact, kalender, etc files over form your old .kdeOld.

2) Radical. If you have a separate /home partition do a fresh install fro the II CD.

3) more radical If you don't have a separate /home partition you should create one then do a fresh install.

Should you have problems with point 3 or are undecided (scared ****less ) post back here.

I hope my guess helps a bit

[smeghead67]

Re: Post 8.10 upgrade application instabilities/crashes

I am having random problems with firefox closing when i click a link, not every link but once or twice a day. I did a clean install. I just updated and am running 3.0.4 so we will see if it continues. I use Thunder bird but not every day so I am not sure if that dies sudenly or not I dont use any of the others often enough to comment.

Ted