KDE sometimes doesn't start

Message

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:15 pm

mmmh.. no..
I tried to do it but it doesn't work.
I moved those files in another location, but it doesn't start.

tomtom69 · Post by **tomtom69** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 6:37 pm

Hi,

had a similar problem with the KDE update to 4.6.5.
In order not to lose all of my settings I did the following:
(1) disable kdm and boot the system without KDE
(2) login on text console as normal user and backup the whole .kde folder: mv .kde4 .kde4_backup
(3) start kdm and log in to get into kde with a default profile
(4) reboot, again with kdm disabled
(5) copy the backup over the newly created default profile: cp -ar .kde4_backup/ .kde4/

Note that I did not delete the newly created profile. After this I was able to login into KDE normally without having lost my settings

tom

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 8:46 pm

tomtom69 wrote:Hi,

had a similar problem with the KDE update to 4.6.5.
In order not to lose all of my settings I did the following:
(1) disable kdm and boot the system without KDE
(2) login on text console as normal user and backup the whole .kde folder: mv .kde4 .kde4_backup
(3) start kdm and log in to get into kde with a default profile

It is very strange and incredible: I cannot login even with the default profile. O_O
I cannot explain myself this behavior, since creating a new user this problem is not present.

AaronPPC · Post by **AaronPPC** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 5:38 am

Try deleting /var/tmp/kdecache-<your username>. I have had success with that when it happens to me.

dE_logics · Post by **dE_logics** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 6:04 am

What I meant was that, you can remove/rename each folder at a time to see which directory is causing the problem (for e.g. renaming the .local directory might solve the problem), once you've figured out what's the source of the problem you may dive deeper into the folder to see which thing is causing the exact problem.

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:59 am

I've created again another test user and it works very well. So, it's something due to the content of my /home directory but not the .kde/ directory.

AaronPPC wrote:Try deleting /var/tmp/kdecache-<your username>. I have had success with that when it happens to me.

Unfortunately this didn't solve my problem, for the reason above.

dE_logics wrote:What I meant was that, you can remove/rename each folder at a time to see which directory is causing the problem (for e.g. renaming the .local directory might solve the problem), once you've figured out what's the source of the problem you may dive deeper into the folder to see which thing is causing the exact problem.

OK, the .local dir is not the culprit. We have verified that it is something in my home directory which is neither .local nor .kde4.

I'm going to try something else... But it is still strange that with the intel graphic card there is no problem.

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:08 am

I have also tried to delete (rename) the following directories but the problem persists:

Code: Select all

.adobe
.android
.aspell.en.prepl
.aspell.en.pws
.dia
.directory
.distcc
.dropbox
.dropbox-dist
.dropbox-dist-new
.dvdcss
.eclipse
.face.icon
.filezilla
.fontconfig
.fonts.conf
.gconf
.gconfd
.gegl-0.0
.gimp-2.6
.gnome2
.gnome2_private
.gnupg
.google
.gsopcast
.gtk-bookmarks
.hamachi
.hplip
.htoprc
.java
.kde->kde4
.kde3.5
.kde4
.kismet
.lesshst
.lo3
.macromedia
.mozilla
.mplayer
.mysql_history
.nautilus
.netkit
.ooo3
.putty
.qsopcast
.qt
.qt-recordmydesktop
.recently-used
.sane
.Skype
.subversion
.tor
.TrueCrypt
.unison
.vidalia
.viminfo
.VirtualBox
.vnc
.wireshark
.xine
.xinitrc
.xournal

and also:

Code: Select all

.cache
.config
.dbus
.nvidia-settings-rc
.local
.kdevduchain
.ICEauthority

What is remaining now to test is:

Code: Select all

.bash_history
.bash_logout
.bash_profile
.bashrc
.dmrc
.gstreamer-0.10
.ssh
.thumbnails
.wicd
.Xauthority
.xsession-errors

I didn't test to rename the above list (the last) because those files are present also in the fresh new user setup, having the following files in its home directory:

Code: Select all

.bash_logout
.bash_profile
.bashrc
.config
.dbus
.dmrc
.gstreamer-0.10
.hplip
.kde4
.local
.ssh
.thumbnails
.wicd
.Xauthority
.xsession-errors

It seems like if it would recognize my username and makes it impossible to allow me to start KDE.
By the way: two or three times KDE started but I couldn't do anything, because it was unresponsive.

UPDATE:
The problem is not due to the content of my home directory.
Here's why:

I've created the user "test" and KDE starts with it.
So, the /home directory content is the following:

Code: Select all

drwxr-xr-x 84 myuser myuser  4096 Oct 22 14:30 myuser
drwxr-xr-x 13 test   test    4096 Oct 22 12:19 test

These are the steps I've performed:

Code: Select all

cd /home
mv myuser myuser_
cp -R test myuser
chown -R myuser:myuser myuser

Now I have:

Code: Select all

drwxr-xr-x 84 myuser myuser  4096 Oct 22 14:30 myuser_
drwxr-xr-x 13 test   test    4096 Oct 22 12:19 test
drwxr-xr-x 13 myuser myuser  4096 Oct 22 12:19 myuser

And then, I've logged in as "myuser". Surprisingly, KDE doesn't start!!! So there is no "wrong content" in (real) myuser directory. It is like if the system would recognize my username and wouldn't allow me to run KDE. This is simply absurd!
What I can try now is the nouveau driver. I will let you know.

UPDATE:
OK, I've tried the nouveau drivers and I can start KDE, so there is some issue with nvidia-drivers with my username!!!
Compiz cannot start with nouveau. Coming back to nvidia-drivers and see what happen...

UPDATE: nothing changed.

I've run out of ideas.

dE_logics · Post by **dE_logics** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:33 am

If you're just concerned about preserving settings, just make a new user, delete the old one and migration everything in your home folder to the new user's home folder.

Also check the groups of your current username.

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 9:19 am

Thanks, I've thought to that solution, but it is the last chance.
It's a very strange issue.

dE_logics · Post by **dE_logics** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 2:57 pm

I tend to think your user doesn't have permission to the graphic chip.

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Sun Oct 23, 2011 3:04 pm

So, it has the permission for the intel graphic card and it has not for the nvidia card?

How to check this out? I've never heard anything about that.

dE_logics · Post by **dE_logics** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 6:47 am

Are you in the video group?

Also what are the FPS when running glxgears as your user and as root?

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:11 am

dE_logics wrote:Are you in the video group?

Of course, yes. My user is in the video group, but the test user isn't!!! And KDE starts anyway!

dE_logics wrote: Also what are the FPS when running glxgears as your user and as root?

test user: 1112.752
As root: 1116.161

dE_logics · Post by **dE_logics** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:24 am

Maybe you should try removing yourself from the video group. Maybe KDE doesn't start cause it tries to enable composting which causes trouble.

fbcyborg · Post by **fbcyborg** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 9:39 am

dE_logics wrote:Maybe you should try removing yourself from the video group. Maybe KDE doesn't start cause it tries to enable composting which causes trouble.

Thanks!!!!! That was the problem! wtf!
Anyway, my user is in the video group in my Desktop PC and I don't have this problem there. What about compositing?
Becouse Desktop effects are disabled in the laptop. If I enable them, I can start KDE anyway.

By the way: it is the nvidia guide that says to add the user to the video group.

dE_logics · Post by **dE_logics** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:00 pm

If you still enable composting, then Kwin will use software render which's a lot slower and takes a lot of CPU.

This's a problem with the nvidia driver, maybe you should recompile the nvidia-driver package and x11-base/xorg-server; or maybe downgrading will help.