I'll start off by saying I'm a linux noob trying out Kubuntu 12.10.

When I run Konsole from the Run command, I get the error message: "Warning: Program '/usr/bin/konsole' crashed." In that same window, if I go to settings > edit current profile, the "Profile name" is empty. In the "Run command" window, there is also no icon next to Konsole (I believe there used to be one). I have tried reinstalling Konsole using the Muon Software Center, but I get the same error message afterwards.

After doing some research, I was able to find the location "/usr/share/applications/kde4/" and when I click on "konsole.desktop" I get the error message "KDEInit could not launch '/usr/bin/konsole' " I've searched for solutions, but haven't found anything, and I'm not familiar enough with linux yet to come up with any other ideas...

Thanks in advance for the help.

Hi,

that sounds like a pain and I am not certain as to what the problem could be. You could check the logs - not sure about kubuntu, but there should be something in /var/log/everything.log

You did not say when this started or whether there was anything you did prior to konsole being borked.

First thing I'd try is the following:

Code: Select all

mv ~/.kde/share/config/konsolerc ~/.kde/share/config/konsolerc.bak

Now try to start konsole and see whether it works again.

Let us know how you fare...

If the default profile is messed up, try using this to see if you can run this from another terminal (xterm, etc)

konsole --profile=FALLBACK/

Hmm, I can't think of anything I would have done that may have messed it up--besides maybe running the Muon Update Manager? I must have done something, but nothing obvious jumps to mind (can't think of any major software installs, hardware changes, etc.)

toad: I tried running the code from xterm, but I'm not sure whether anything happended...would there have been some kind of confirmation message? Also, did I need to run that from a specific directory (I ran pwd and I was in /home/username )? Sorry about the newbiness of these questions, but I'm still learning about using the command line.

I checked the /var/log directory and found this message in kern.log:
"Apr 4 13:46:41 username-ThinkPad-T430 kernel: [79966.100896] konsole[27971]: segfault at 0 ip (null) sp 00007fffc0a559e8 error 14 in konsole[400000+1000]"

hindenburg: I tried that line from xterm and got this message: "Segmentation fault (core dumped)"

Not sure if any of these messages help. Is there a way I could just reinstall konsole to fix the problem?

You can always try it, it doesn't cost much

Other than that, "segmentation fault" indicates a programming error (the programmer somehow screwed up his memory management). Sometimes it can be triggered by external circumstances, such as files being inaccessible (because a programmer didn't think of that possibility). It is a very general error message though, and is not very useful for fixing the problem.

If you have the debug package installed for konsole, you can try running "gdb konsole", then "run" and when it crashes type "backtrace" (type "quit" to exit gdb). If it shows something useful (not just lots of question marks), then that is valuable information for fixing the bug (you could for example submit a bug report with that).
Alternatively, you could try to shoot into the blue and run strace -f konsole; that'll print all syscalls konsole does (careful, lots of output). Look at the last few lines before it crashes -- maybe it cannot access an important file or so.

Greetings,
Sven

Konsole stores it's profiles for your user account at ~/.kde4/share/apps/konsole/ usually, so it might help to move this somewhere else while Konsole is not running.

Hey everybody, thanks for the help! I ended up just saving a few files and then reinstalling kubuntu--problem solved. Normally I would keep pressing to find a solution, but I think I would like to spend some more time with a working system first--at least until I have the basics down. Thanks again for the help!