Mirosław you are running K4.8.4 and Testing like me, are you not seeing problems?

bcooksley I've tried reporting the crashes, but it always says, "The generated crash information is not useful." LOL

Don't have anything from kdelook, but in my Konqueror errors above it does complain about a plugin lib:
"konqueror(4960)/kdecore (KLibrary) findLibraryInternal: plugins should not have a 'lib' prefix: "libkhtmlpart.so"

I only have libflashplayer, libkpartsplugin, and skypebuttons plugins installed. No package claims skype, but libkparts4 claims kparts, although removing it would remove all and everything of KDE. libkhtmlpart is at the core of Konqueror's web engine so it can't come out.

# kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kbuildsycoca4(8888) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/x2goclient.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon).

Aside from Konqueror and Kontact, KDE can never manage to shut down the system, as described above. There are a number of other minor problems which I can't think of ATM.

I notice on the front page of kde.org they say version 4.8.5 is out now. (I'm 4.8.4) They say it has -alot- of bugfixes and that -everyone- should upgrade. Unfortunately Debian is about to transition Wheezy (Testing, which I run) to Stable, so upgrades are going at a glacial pace. I see there's even a KDE version 4.9, but of course I can't get that. I could upgrade to Unstable, but I've tried that before and it was a short-lived disaster.

Quantum wrote:Mirosław you are running K4.8.4 and Testing like me, are you not seeing problems?

Not really.
I am using Opera as my main web browser and have been used Konqueror as browser for quick lookups on web. It used to crash quite often, but when I have switched HTML rendering engine from KHTML to Webkit, things got better. Later I discovered rekonq and I am using this as secondary browser. It crashed once or twice, but it does not really bother me.

As for Kontact, KMail gets unstable in predictable way. Sometimes it can't connect to remote servers to fetch new mails. It uses entire core of processor then. I can simply quit Kontact, but on next launch it will crash at very beginning. I have to launch it again and everything is fine.
There are other problems, but none of them causes KMail/Kontact to crash. If it weren't for Korganizer and KJots, I would drop KMail long ago (at least until KMail2 gets packaged). But I prefer to have one window for three tasks than three windows, one for each.

I had never had any problems with shutting down system. Hibernation seemed to work fine, but I only tested it once or twice - on my machine, invoking from sleep takes around the same time as cold-booting.

Sorry, but not. For me, KDE SC is very stable.

Quantum wrote:I notice on the front page of kde.org they say version 4.8.5 is out now. (I'm 4.8.4) They say it has -alot- of bugfixes and that -everyone- should upgrade. Unfortunately Debian is about to transition Wheezy (Testing, which I run) to Stable, so upgrades are going at a glacial pace. I see there's even a KDE version 4.9, but of course I can't get that. I could upgrade to Unstable, but I've tried that before and it was a short-lived disaster.

Newer KDE has not been packaged for either unstable, experimental or kde-qt (semi-official repository), so don't bother upgrading.
It is unlikely there will be any newer KDE SC in Debian before release of Wheezy.

Minio wrote:Newer KDE has not been packaged for either unstable, experimental or kde-qt (semi-official repository), so don't bother upgrading.
It is unlikely there will be any newer KDE SC in Debian before release of Wheezy.

If i remember correctly parts of 4.4.5 got in Squeeze after the freeze, so it *might* be updated to 4.8.5, but, who will know?

Quantum wrote:Mirosław you are running K4.8.4 and Testing like me, are you not seeing problems?

bcooksley I've tried reporting the crashes, but it always says, "The generated crash information is not useful." LOL

Try installing the debug packages (the ones called -dbg) at least for kdelibs and kde-workspace and regenerate the information. Otherwise the developers will not be able to see what is wrong.

The messages from "kbuildsycoca4" can be safely ignored - they are harmless warnings. kbuildsycoca4 should be run as your normal user, never as root.

A little bit of clarifacation:

1) I don't think anyone is suggesting you create a new user and remain that new user indefinently. They are simply using that fresh set-up as a temporary model so that you can see if it works for one "user" on your system but not for you. If it does, then the problem is in YOUR configs most likely. If it doesn't, I.E. The problem is system-wide, well then at that point you should think about each error you are experiencing and report each type of error individually. That way each error can be tackled individually. Greater likelyhood of solving your issue.

2) As stated before, it's only fair to keep in mind you are using the version called "testing." You should expect these errors. the software is still being tested. So keep in mind point number one above. It's pretty clear from your posts that you are using KDE for primary use. (hooray!) ..... So you should really be using the stable version. That's what it's for!

3) If you like a distro that's pure KDE, stable and pretty much cutting edge you might look into Chakra Linux. (Shameless plug. www.chakra-linux.org)

Good luck getting help!

Quantum wrote:I've run KDE for 14 years, and it has never never been this bad.

I can confirm this. After my yesterday update the plasma-desktop did not start. After fixing this the whole evening today I realized today that digikam crashes always. I have not found a work around yet. Maybe I have misinterpreted the announcement: As the release only contains bugfixes and translation updates, it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.

In kmail the filtering on (incoming and already received) messages an is worse than ever. A lot of mails are empty - no body, no header - not a single byte.

I wonder, what will come next.

BTW: I don't intend to recreate my configuration with every update. The proposal to just log in as a new user and try out a fresh configuration is not acceptable.

Thomas Arend wrote:

Quantum wrote:I've run KDE for 14 years, and it has never never been this bad.

BTW: I don't intend to recreate my configuration with every update. The proposal to just log in as a new user and try out a fresh configuration is not acceptable.

Seriously, you can not still be on this... They aren't asking you to do so indefinitely. Certainly not as a permanent solution! They were asking you to do so as a temporary "trial" so that the issue could be more readily diagnosed. Come on. Lets be fair here. Look at some of my posts. I complain as much as others do but lets realize that the KDE community does do a good job of fixing this type of issue once it is verified to occur in more than one isolated instance. That's also why they ask you to verify it by logging in as a different user.

One of the great things about KDE is that you can tinker with it and configure it to suit your fancy. If I were you I would create a new user named "test" and start your system in a stock configuration. Bare bones if you will. No bells, no whistles. Then I'd add back in the options one at a time and see how they affect your system. When you hit upon the one that affects you negatively, come back on here and report the chain of events. Then I bet you'll get your issue addressed properly.

You also will have the satisfaction of knowing you helped SOLVE an issue that might be a problem for others. If it was just isolated to a configuration on your system, well then... worst case scenario you will have learned something when it's fixed!

The only alternative of course is to use the stable version. That is what it is for by the way. I applaud you for using the system for your daily activities.

You may want to look into possible configuration issues or problems involving debian packages as I don't think this problem is related to KDE in particular. I'm also using KDE 4.8.4 on Kubuntu 12.04.1 and have no problem launching/using 20 instances of konqueror along with amarok/chromium/kopete/quassel and more apps running at the same time.

This is surprising to me since I've been cautious not to attempt such things after the instability I experienced early on (4.4-4.5) but I haven't had a single crash while using the latest releases.

I have come to the conclusion that not all KDE distro's are created equal, and granted, hardware no doubt plays a major role in varying user experiences. However if one remains loyal to distro A updating and installing newer releases as they arrive, and never 'experiments' with distro B's offerings, then the not-so-desired issues of distro A tend to become 'accepted' and repeated. I personally quit a distro because I nearly went insane with the constant "Knetattach has crashed" error message 30 times a day. I'm certainly not dismissing your experiences, nor am I suggesting a "just use a different distro" approach, but for me the losing of the blind loyalty I mentioned has been a pleasant and very rewarding experience. I believe a spade should be called a spade, but too often I find the distro apologists and evangelists actually doing more harm than good.

Well right after I made my last post here on Sept1, 2012, I gave up on KDE and went to XFCE. What a breath of fresh air! NONE of the instabilities I had with KDE. I stayed with Debian Testing, as I have for 15 years, so that has not changed.

I still must use Kontact, as no other email client allows me to put my emails where I want them, how I want them, although it does have its little problems and things it should be able to do.

I tried Konqueror again recently (which I'd used happily for ten years)(fresh install, only bookmarks imported), and it was a mess. Unusable. I tried rekonq and it hung up regularly, needing to be killed. So I gave up and went back to Iceweasel.

So XFCE is giving me the stability I remember from the KDE 3.x days. There are some limitations, but not nearly such as with Gnome. I can install and use any KDE, Gnome, or GTK app I choose.

I have concluded though, that Debian is grinding to a halt. Their latest feature freeze has gone on for almost a year. There is STILL no selinux or AppArmor. No Upstart. Iceweasel is still at version 10! (current version 19) Some plugins no longer work, Iceweasel is so old. And there are no advanced features that are commonly available and functional on other distros. So I'm looking for another distro that will hopefully last me another 15 years. Unfortunately that's looking like Xubuntu. I hate that six month release cycle, requiring a reinstall, after having used a rolling release for so long. But Debian is becoming paleolithic, even in the Testing release. So I am going to have to make a change.

Quantum wrote: I tried Konqueror again recently (which I'd used happily for ten years)(fresh install, only bookmarks imported), and it was a mess. Unusable. I tried rekonq and it hung up regularly, needing to be killed. So I gave up and went back to Iceweasel.

Well, this seems to be a minority case as far as my experience (reading this forum daily) is. Also, what versions were you using? Due to its guidelines, Debian (which is not a bad distro, at all!) ships software that with regards to KDE is several years behind the most recent revisions. It may be as well that you experienced bugs that were already fixed.

Quantum wrote: functional on other distros. So I'm looking for another distro that will hopefully last me another 15 years. Unfortunately that's looking like Xubuntu. I hate that six month release cycle, requiring a reinstall, after having used a rolling release for so long. But Debian is becoming paleolithic, even in the Testing release. So I am going to have to make a change.

I'm not sure how this relates to KDE. In any case, Debian follows his policy, which make sense for specific environments (I run it on most of the servers I have access to). Rapidly evolving software of course is going to be at a disadvantage here. And as far as I can tell, the Ubuntu derivatives support live upgrades, just like Debian.

With all of this said, I would add that you bumped this thread after a whole year of inactivity. This is called necroposting and is bad etiquette. Also, most of this post is completely off topic to thie topic at hand (KDE supposed instability) and does not really drive discussion forward. In fact, I would suggest you to use the KDE Cafe area for topics such as distribution discussion, of course always keeping in mind good etiquette and adherence to the forum rules and the KDE Code of Conduct.

Well, technically it's been seven months since the last post, and that was enough time for me to know that in fact the problem is KDE. I didn't expect my words to be popular here, but it was my true experience. It is very possible and I don't doubt that the KDE version in Debian Testing at that time was over a year old, but even year-old software shouldn't have bugs like that when KDE's been around for a decade, should it?

My testing cycle and assessment is complete, and my results are above.