I'm not sure if KWin is the actual source of these two problems or not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL5DWXoKDuk

Aside from the two described there, I've also seen my battery life drop immensely when effects are enabled. None of this was present in 4.4.5 for me. The laptop is a Gateway EC1433u (Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics) with OpenSUSE 11.3.

Any thoughts?

Can you reproduce this with a new user? Does ~/.xsession-errors tell anything useful? Which compositing type do you use? (System Settings -> (Workspace Appearance and Behavior) -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced.)

For me changing color scheme works fine with Desktop Effects enabled in 4.5.1.

Yes, this happens on any user (mine and a test account I created for these issues). It even happens if I run systemsettings as root.

As for xsession-errors, I wouldn't exactly know what to look for... here's the file in whole: http://pastebin.com/Rg33Vwb1

As for compositing type, I use OpenGL. The only other option is XRender, although the same happens with it too.

To increase plasma and overall performance I suggest you go to the "All Effects" tab in "Configure desktop effects" and disable the Blur effect.

I am having the same full system lock-up problem.

It happens anytime I try to make a change to a KDE 'System Setting' immediately after 'Apply'.

After logging back in, the setting change I made is not saved. Therefor, can not disble the Blur effect to try and fix it.

I am running KDE 4.5.2 on 32 bit Arch Linux.

It should work if you disable compositing by pressing Alt+Shift+F12 before changing settings, right?

You can also edit ~/.kde4/share/config/kwinrc with a text editor.

Under section "[Plugins]" look for "kwin4_effect_blurEnabled" and disable it:

Code: Select all

[Plugins]
kwin4_effect_blurEnabled=false
...


Yes, it works with compositing disabled.

I edited the ~/.kde4/share/config/kwinrc and there was no such line.

I hope this is not a permanent 'fix'.

Thanks for the help!

Yes, it works with compositing disabled.
(...)
I hope this is not a permanent 'fix'.

I'm a bit confused. What works now, and what doesn't?

Does your system still lock up when you enable Desktop Effects?
Did you disable the Blur effect and did it remember the setting?

I disabled desktop effects.
I then disabled the Blur effect.
I then edited the ~/.kde4/share/config/kwinrc to alter the offending setting, it did not exist in that file.

I logged out and back in without any locking up behavior.

I re-enabled the desktop effects and applied.
Problem has not reappeared and I have been able to make changes to the effects, themes, icons, colors, etc. without a problem.

Thank you.

The Blur effect is completely broken. I can't understand why it is enabled by default. It seems to me that more than half of all current kwin problems are related to the Blur effect.

When I enable Blur, the system does not lock up but my kwin performance decreases drastically and e.g. moving windows is very slow.

On my system, with Intel graphics, Blur performs fine. It seems like milage varies, depending on graphics card, and the various versions of X, etc. that are installed.

Thank you. The desktop freezes have been driving me crazy!!! I've searched off and on the past 3 - 4 weeks for a solution. All of this time, it was "blur".

Along the way, I did find a couple of things that helped with other problems so I'll list them here in hopes of helping someone else.

I run a dual monitor (twinview) configuration off of a single nvidia card. Both monitors are 24" LCD, but one monitor has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and the other has a resolution of 1920 x 1080. I was often experiencing sections of my windows vanishing (e.g., the folder pane of dolphin). If I moved the mouse, the full window would appear. The fix was to set the nvidia-setting vblank sync refresh to the 1920 x 1200 monitor. I made this change, but it would not "stick". I later learned that the nvidia-settings are not automatically saved. You have to manually save them, via the nvidia-settings.rc file.

When googling to fix the desktop freeze (very high Xorg cpu usuage), I learned that selecting the nvidia thermal monitoring setting can create desktop freezes. I deselected that option and the desktop freeze frequency decreased, but when the freeze did happen, it was much more severe now.

Googling once more, I found this discussion and with deselecting blur, my system is back to it normal high performance.

For the record, my system is:

AMD 1090T @ 3.6 GHz
16 GB DDR3 @ 1800 MHz
opensuse 11.3, 64-bit
2.6.36-rc7 kernel
KDE 4.5.2
Xorg 7.5-11.3