x stalls - please help

[waverider]

Hello,
I have a clean install of 9.04 AMD64 running on Asus A8V-VM motherboard.
On startup I get to the Login scrren OK but once username and password are accepted the screen shows the disc image but will go no further - it stalls and returns to the login screenI can login to a terminal by using the failsafe login,but as soon as I start X it starts and stalls at the same point. trying to get to a terminal from the login screen using the menu option results in a frozen and distorted screen

8.04 ran fine on the same machine.

How can I find out what is causing this?

Thanks

[waverider]

Re: x stalls - please help

Some further information:
The problem appears to be in the Xsession - Xserver appears to work OK.

The last few line in .xsession-errors after I attempt to startx from a prompt are:

Error: Can not contact kdeinit4!
startkde: Running shutdown scripts...
xprop: unable to open display ':0'
xprop: unable to open display ':0'
startkde: Done.
!Widget: Must construct a QApplication before a QPaintDevice

[KeithZG]

Re: x stalls - please help

I won't claim to know what your problem is, but a couple things to try to maybe narrow down the issue(s):

(1) Go to one of the VTs with Ctrl+Alt+Function (for some reason I tend to use Ctrl+Alt+F4 most of the time) and from there install something else, like OpenBox or LXDE or Fluxbox or FVWM or whatever (none of which will take up more than a couple megs at most really), then try logging into one of those instead of KDE (should become options under the Session Menu or whatever).

(2) uhhh I was about to say something else but then I noticed that you said it was a clean install, so I dunno.

[sithlord48]

Re: x stalls - please help

is this the first reboot after install ?
does keithZG's suggestion of trying another desktop enviroment work ?

[waverider]

Re: x stalls - please help

I reinstalled using Ubuntu then installed KDE4. Ubuntu boots perfectly using Gnome. KDE4 stalls in exactly the same place as with a Kubuntu install.

[KeithZG]

Re: x stalls - please help

I reinstalled using Ubuntu then installed KDE4. Ubuntu boots perfectly using Gnome. KDE4 stalls in exactly the same place as with a Kubuntu install.

That pretty much proves that it's something to do with KDE4, although here's something else to try for narrowing down the problem a bit more.

Step 1: Install Openbox (should just be the "openbox" package, there are others you might want like obconf if you were going to actually use openbox but just for testing purposes you don't have to worry about anything else, so even just "sudo apt-get install openbox" will do the trick).

Step 2: At the login menu, a session option should now appear saying "KDE/Openbox". Try logging in with that.

And the explanation: this problem sounds like a fairly low-level KDE-related rendering problem, at least from my uneducated guesses, so it very well might be a problem with KWin. What the KDE/Openbox session is in a nutshell is using Openbox as the window manager instead of KWin. Thus if you are able to run a KDE4 session with Openbox as the window manager instead of KWin then we've at least potentially narrowed down the problem (and maybe it'll be usable for you in the interim until the actual solution pops up).

[sithlord48]

Re: x stalls - please help

have you installed any video driver for you card ?

[muzicman0]

Re: x stalls - please help

I would try to rename your .kde folder, so that it is recreated, the fact that you can get into gnome makes me think that something is amis there...

[KeithZG]

Re: x stalls - please help

I would try to rename your .kde folder, so that it is recreated, the fact that you can get into gnome makes me think that something is amis there...

That was going to be my original second point, but notice this was first from a fresh install and then again now from another fresh install, so unless the .kde folder is already touched and customized by the kubuntu-desktop package then I don't see how recreating a (theoretically identical) fresh user settings folder would help. Not that I'm saying it isn't worth trying, just that it really doesn't sound like that could be the problem.

[muzicman0]

Re: x stalls - please help

yeah, but if 8.04 was running KDE3.5, and the /home partition wasn't formatted during install, then there would be an existing .kde folder. It is worth a shot. of course, if it was a new partition scheme, or the /home partition was formatted...then all bets are off!

mm0

[KeithZG]

Re: x stalls - please help

yeah, but if 8.04 was running KDE3.5, and the /home partition wasn't formatted during install, then there would be an existing .kde folder. It is worth a shot. of course, if it was a new partition scheme, or the /home partition was formatted...then all bets are off!

Fair enough! Seems to be no new replies here by the original poster, though, so we may never know.