KDE "disappears" after a while

[Sadistic Tribble]

OK. KDE4 seemed to be working very well, until I started encountering this problem. It seems after about an hour or so, my KDE "disappears". The panel is still there, but if I mouse-over any of the icons, they disappear. I have a CPU monitor which shows a shaded area under the graph- eventually, the shaded area as well as the Oxygen outline box thingy disappears, leaving only the two lines. I have a Post-it note on the desktop, for which the background also disappears, leaving only the text. The outline for the Desktop folder view also disappears, leaving the icons.

If I go to the place on the panel, I can run things like the Application Launcher or the Lock/Logoff button I put there. I can also see the outlines for the programs in Task Manager, but no text is there. I can interact with them as well.

I don't know when this started, or even if it was present when I first installed.

I have some desktop effects enabled (although the problem was happening before I enabled them) and have not installed Compiz (I read in my search that it can cause similar problems). All I have installed are some games and SciTE.

My specs:
an MS-1634 with an AMD Turion X2, 2GB RAM and 80GB Seagate HDD.

[EDIT] After playing games and doing AP Physics practice problems for the last hour and a half, I am forced to the conclusion that this happens only when I leave the computer alone on the desktop for a while.

[zenarcher]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

I'm having exactly the same issue with a computer I've been working on for a family member. I have the same system installed in another five or six computers here and have no problem at all....just with this one system. It's been driving me crazy. I've observed (after about a week of experimenting) that the problem only occurs once I've installed the Nvidia driver. Without the Nvidia driver installed, it does not happen. I've tested RAM, tried different RAM, different hard drive, etc....with no change. The computer has an old Nvidia FX5200 video card in it and out of frustration, I've ordered a new FX5200 and I'm waiting for it to arrive and see if that will resolve the problem. I'm wondering if the video card is the problem. I've done installs on other systems with the FX5200 and the same Nvidia driver and not had the problem.

It would be great to know if anyone else is experiencing this problem and if anyone has any ideas for resolving it. Personally, I'm a bit relieved to know that I'm not the only one with this issue.

Cheers,
zenarcher

[Sadistic Tribble]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

I think it unlikely that the video card is the problem. I have an ATI, meaning that similar problems would be occurring on two different chipsets with different drivers. Also, it just doesn't sound like a driver/GPU problem to me- any problem I've had with the GPU crops up immediately, usually after I've changed something.

With the duration it takes to disappear, and the fact that it doesn't disappear if I'm doing stuff with it, it almost sounds like a memory leak. But I don't have all that much KDE/Kubuntu experience so I won't make assumptions.

I have two screencaps, one of the working desktop and one of the borked desktop. I'll upload them soon.

[EDIT] Here they are. Looks like it's even worse than I described it, at times.

[zenarcher]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

Interesting. As I say, I don't have the problem until after I install the Nvidia driver. Also, I don't lose all of the icons on the taskbar. Two or three of them might remain, while the others disappear. As you say...when you pass the mouse cursor over them. Same here. The system I'm having trouble with also uses an MSI motherboard, but with an AMD 64 bit Dual Core CPU. I have one GB of RAM in the system and have also tried swapping out RAM for known good RAM. It's a new motherboard and CPU. No signs of overheating anywhere. The only thing I haven't done yet is to try installing a different distribution.

I have noted, when doing a hard shutdown that I'm seeing several errors on sda1....I/O errors, I believe. I don't have the box set up on my desk right now, as I'm working on another system at the moment. I have done repeated installs and used the same install disk to get successful installs on other systems.

Everything is fine and normal until after I install the Nvidia driver, as I say. I have left the system running without the Nvidia driver for a day and a half...sitting idle...and the problem does not occur.

Cheers,
zenarcher

[fidesratioque]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

I had a similar problem. Does your K Desktop Manager ultimately crash?

I found that turning compositing on and off repeatedly (alt-control-f12) eventually brought the desktop back w/out a restart.

Anything like this?
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3103055.0

[Sadistic Tribble]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

The problem is the same as yours, but disabling compositing crashes my system (goes directly to a blank screen with text cursor at the top- can't type or anything though). Could it be caused by the fact that I have so much transparency stuff set (I kind of went overboard with the desktop effects)?

[zenarcher]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

I'm using the Nvidia 8400GS on three of my systems here with the Nvidia driver and all the compositing and I've had no problems with any of them. The problem system I have is using the FX5200 video card and Nvidia driver. I haven't tried turning compositing on and off repeatedly....and I dont' have the system up on my bench at the moment. I'm in the middle of putting a new motherboard and CPU in another computer right now, so wont' get back to the problem system until late tomorrow, I think. But, it's good to know there are others with the same kind of problems. I've been fighting this for a week, thinking it was just me or a hardware problem with this computer.

Cheers,
zenarcher

[fidesratioque]

Re: KDE "disappears" after a while

The problem is the same as yours, but disabling compositing crashes my system (goes directly to a blank screen with text cursor at the top- can't type or anything though). Could it be caused by the fact that I have so much transparency stuff set (I kind of went overboard with the desktop effects)?

I'm pretty sure it's a video driver problem. This is basically a 'diagnosis of exclusion', as nothing else is wrong with my computer. I'm guessing that the driver you're using is buggy in some way or another.

I know this isn't a very satisfying answer. My problem has mostly disappeared, though. Maybe yours will, too?