After upgrading to KDE 4.10.2 most of applications (Krusader, System Settings, ...) are very slow. When I open service manager I get this error

Unable to contact KDED

in `~/.xsession-errros` quite frequently repeats this:

kio_http(13036)/kio_http_debug HTTPProtocol::findCookies: Can't communicate with kded_kcookiejar!

You are not the first person affected by this i'm afraid. It seems there may be issues with the Kubuntu 4.10.2 packages.

Can you check to see if "kded4" is doing anything in particular using System Activity?
Also, can you check to see if a long list of entries is printed out if you run "qdbus" in Konsole? (The list itself is irrelevant, it is the instantaneous nature of the response which is relevant).

qdbus gives some output (approx. 128 lines). I've tried to compare the output with one from working account. There are some entries missing, like org.freedesktop.Akonadi

The interesting part, are all the zombie processes (this is after deleting ~/.kde folder - successful login, missing widgets at main panel, unresponsive DE)

Code: Select all

deric     2868  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    08:19   0:00 [kwin_opengl_tes] <defunct>
deric     2884  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    08:19   0:00 [xrdb] <defunct>
deric     3006  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    08:20   0:00 [python] <defunct>
deric     3030  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        ZN   08:20   0:00 [virtuoso-t] <defunct>
deric     3073  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    08:20   0:00 [xrdb] <defunct>
deric     3079  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        ZN   08:21   0:00 [virtuoso-t] <defunct>
deric     3092  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        ZN   08:22   0:00 [virtuoso-t] <defunct>
deric     3106  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        ZN   08:23   0:00 [virtuoso-t] <defunct>
deric     3183 14.1  0.0      0     0 ?        ZN   08:24   0:02 [virtuoso-t] <defunct>
deric     3193  0.0  0.0   9792   932 tty1     S+   08:24   0:00 grep defunct


That is a very high number of zombie processes, which is concerning. Unfortunately it looks like deleting ~/.kde* has not helped in this case, and the rapid response of "qdbus" indicates that this is not a issue with contacting the D-Bus session server.

Can you see if any processes in particular are blocked on output or similar? This is usually indicated by a "D" in programs such as ps and htop.

I had trouble with KDED too (most of the symptoms are identical to yours), and I solved it by following this: http://kdepepo.wordpress.com/2011/05/11 ... ded4-bugs/

Look for the part about how to remove KDED modules, from /usr/share/kde4/services/kded. Usually, KDED itself isn't the problem - it's one of the modules. So back them up, log out of KDE, remove some that you think are faulty (you'll need to be root, doing this from a hard terminal), and then try logging in again. After a while you might find the faulty module.

Slightly off topic: In my specific case, it was kmixd.desktop, which couldn't start due to a corruption in PulseAudio's config from a previous login. Easily fixed by erasing some temporary folders and restarting PulseAudio, then logout and login to KDE. Details about resetting PulseAudio: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pu ... tup_failed

Hunting for the problematic KDED module should lead you to the root of the real problem.

Well, thanks alot about the side note! It seems that pulseaudio stopping and killing kmixctrl, then kmix, fouls up dbus. And then, causes the other dbus modules to FALL LIKE DOMINOS. AND THEY DO JUST THAT.

When pulseaudio failed, I lost control of all my widgets, krunner, shortcuts, you name it. It seems that this problem is more than just an issue of a faulting module. It is a design resilliance issue. There should never be such defunct zombie processes like this. Someone, somewhere, messed up and messed up bad.

However, "this is no time for finger-pointing". The best thing to do is what you said, walk though the modules in the zombie list, until you find the culprit (for me it was same as you, kmix/kmixctrl defunct due to a corrupted pulse audio configuration)... deleting tempfiles and a few settings did indeed fix the problem so thanks for that. It probably would have taken me days of **s scratching to figure out where I went wrong if not for your post.

Cheer!