HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

[robertdebrus]

Hey all,

Im using 10.04 Kubuntu, and I have had this problem happen to me twice now. I did a search and was unable to find my exact problem anywhere, but heres what happens:

I will be running WINE, and after a screen change a couple of times kde freaks out - the tops of all windows are missing, the keyboard will only work for the login screen, the mouse buttons are either reversed or will not work; also, KDE goes into the 'low detail' mode on the task bar at the bottom.

I will explain what I did each time to cause this. The first time, I was trying to cntrl x escape while running MAME in WINE. It wouldnt work, so I forced a restart. Thats when it was like the above. The second time, I was running Interstate 76 in WINE - after installing and using a no cd patch I decided to put in the real cd to see if it would still read the music/movies. Oddly, when I exited the game I was on the login screen (!) and not the desktop.

I figure it isnt WINE perse thats doing it, but rather some behavoir WINE is forcing KDE to do. This is so bad Ive had to reinstall Kubuntu twice. Please help!

Further H/w detail - Im running a Nvidia 9600 GT with a AMD Phenom 9500 Quadcore.

[ffendland]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

Logout & Login again. that should reset your screen res...

[robertdebrus]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

Nope. Like I said, it doesnt work after a restart. The resolution has never changed.

[otisklt]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

Xorg/Kwin is crashing because of wine's interaction with it.

Your options AFAIK are:
- Check the wine forums by game
- Try a different Nvidia driver ( if you are using what installed with the OS )
- Disable or reduce desktop effects when using wine
- Try alternate window managers ( icewm, openbox, xfce, etc ) by creating a session that loads the other window manager and only run wine/games under that session

[robertdebrus]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

I tried unstalling the nvidia drivers; it didnt help. Nothing else you mentioned fixed the problem. If I can figure this out, I will search the WINE forums to see if there is anything else like it.

I just want to be able to fix this if it happens again, Id like to avoid having to reinstall Kubuntu if I can.

[otisklt]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

All I can see so far to try and get a good install of the nvidia drivers this post talks of following a specific set of steps to install or try sudo nvidia-settings to rewrite the xorg.conf file ( or whatever LL10.04 is using ).

[toad]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

Perhaps the package playonlinux may help.

BTW, which windows manager/desktop environment did you use instead of kde? You did say that you tried all of otisklt's suggestions...

[MoonRise]

Re: HELP! Kubuntu goes haywire and loses top of windows, keyboard, etc

Another thing to try and is what I do (and I do have a large screen monitor) is to set WINE to emulate a virtual desktop and set the resolution to something like 1024x768. Again, this is if you have a larger monitor. I have my resolution on my monitor at 1680x1050 and my WINE virtual desktop set at 1280x800 (what my laptop usually is) and all work great! To set WINE go into the Configuration tool and go to the Graphics TAB. The setting is there.