I have the random blank screen issue too, on kde 4.2 factory repo openSUSE 11.1. It occurred after some updates 1-2 weeks ago. I didn't have any problem before.

I found out that if I have composite enabled I get only 2-3fps in glxgears, so I suppose it is a driver issue (my vga is nvidia 6600gt).
I've tried disabling the present windows to see if it works, but the poor performance problem insists so I have disabled composite for now.

ivan wrote:@alte_esel:
That has nothing to do with /this/ problem, it is a /normal/ Plasma crash which leaves black desktop. Please install the packages with debugging symbols included, and post the crash report at bugs.kde.org. And if it is not too much hassle, remove the backtrace from the post since it is unnecessary long and not useful for this post.

Cheers!

How can I find out what occur my problem that cause black screen and I can access alt+shift+F12 .

Please be so kind of you to direct me how can I solve it?

Thank you for your cooperation;)

Hi,
just want to confirm that disabling "present windows" also solves it for me.
Had the problem since the last two opensuse11.1 kde2 factory updates i think.
In my case nothing crashes at all, the screen just turns black when lauching an aplication (but only the first time i launch it). I can get the screen back with just throwing the mouse at the upper left corner to enable "present windows" or upper right corner to use "desktop grid" as i have it set up. Everything gets back to normal until i lauch a new app.
I get this with both fglrx and the radeon opensource driver so i don't think it's driver related.
regards,
Carlos

CJPB wrote:Hi,
just want to confirm that disabling "present windows" also solves it for me.
Had the problem since the last two opensuse11.1 kde2 factory updates i think.
In my case nothing crashes at all, the screen just turns black when lauching an aplication (but only the first time i launch it). I can get the screen back with just throwing the mouse at the upper left corner to enable "present windows" or upper right corner to use "desktop grid" as i have it set up. Everything gets back to normal until i lauch a new app.
I get this with both fglrx and the radeon opensource driver so i don't think it's driver related.
regards,
Carlos

Well what I fund out create a new user account and it will not affected at all,but one thing is that when I login to my new account it`s slowing down,I try to saying when I click on firefox it takes forever or other application the same think it is soooo
sloooow.
I will find out why is so slow.

Thank you everyone to try to helping me:thumbs_up:.

alte_esel

System:
* NVIDIA 7300 GS 128MB on card, probably uses system memory too
* driver 180.29
* Debian Qt4.5-rc1, KDE svn

Advanced composite settings:
* OpenGL, TFP, Trilinear, direct rendering, VSync
* Always keep thumbnails

Present Window settings:
* Default duration; Natural layout; all the way to Nicer; Fill gaps
* Display titles, icons; Use for switching; Show panels
* Don't ignore minimized windows

1. New window appears (systemsettings, firefox Save As dialog, mumble, probably others)
* most of the time everything continues working, but sometimes step 2 happens
2. Screen (except panel) goes black, pointer still changes according to window underneath (I-bar over konsole)
3. (works everytime) Activate Present Window's screen edge: works normally
* Then normal windows work normally
4. Popup windows (rightclick menus, plasma-desktop's KMenu, the bouncing cursor icon) are invisible, but can be interacted with
* ISTR that krunner is still visible when invoked
5. (tested once) To make popups visible:
a. hover over KMenu's pop up space, activate KMenu, click to launch one of the favorite applications (the one I launched happens to be KWrite)
b. The app will appear in taskbar, but invisible on desktop, activate Present Window to make it visible
c. I rightclicked panel for fun, suddenly the menu is there, * hdh happy
Bouncing cursor and KMenu also come back

When this happens next time, I'll test:
* Switching desktop with plasma's Pager
* Opening rightclick menu on panel while desktop is black
* KMenu while desktop is black
* Invoking krunner

Speculation: It _seems_ to happen more often when I pumps up Override Antialiasing, Override Anisotropy, and Texture Sharpening in nvidia-settings

My KDE is from svn trunk, several days old, before revision 930448 (which has the same fix as 930721). I am updating now and will report in later.

Zarin wrote:The next time someone gets a black screen can they record what they were doing for a few minutes before it happened, specifically with KWin effects? All I really need is "activated alt+tab with cover switch", "launched Konqueror", "used the cube", etc. There is also the possibility it's a combination of effect usages that is causing present windows to make all windows invisible.

Well, after having had this problem a few times now all I can say for certain is that on my machine it invariably happens when I try to restore a window from the systray (i.e. Kontact, Amarok, Ktorrent, Konversation).

I have these KWin-effects enabled (the individual effects hasn't been altered much in the ways of default-settings):

*Fade
*Login
*Logout
*Magic lamp
*Minimize animation
*Scale in
*Shadow
*Taskbar thumbnails
*Thumbnails aside
*Translucency
*Wobbly windows
*Dialog parent
*Dim inactive
*Dim screen for administrative mode
*Cover-switch
*Desktop cube
*Desktop gride
*Present windows (turned off for the time being)

This is using

NVIDIA 7300 GS
Nvidia driver 180.29

General tab:
Enabled improved windowmanagement
Enabled shadows
Enabled various animations
Effect for window switching: cover-switch
Effect for desktop-swithcing: cube
Animation speed: normal

Screen-edges tab:
Top-right:desktop-grid
Lower-right: cube
Upper-left: Present-windows (all desktops)

Advanced tab:
Compositing type: OpenGL
Keep window thumbnails: always
OpenGL mode: texture from pixmap
Texture filter: bilinear
Enabled direct rendering
Enabled use vsync

OpenSUSE 11.1 factory, Qt 4.4.3, 64-bit

I have about 7 machines that have linux on them and I have slowly been moving them over to kde 4.2 from gnome. My main machine is an ubuntu install with KDE 4.2 added after the fact.

I get a black screen that (from bottom to top) is black until it his the pretty icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Then it shows the regular background. That tho only provides me with about an inch of the desktop that I can see.

This occurs when I resize the bottom panel.

Here's the reason and the procedure:

Reasons for resizing the panel:

1) the pager widget is not sized properly for the panel upon loading KDE 4.2 and thus the desktop.

2) The system tray widget does not draw correctly. When I choose to remove an icon from the system tray and the other icons in the system tray repositions itself, they will be displayed as the remaining icons overlapping the old icons that were removed or moved in the repositioning procedure.

3) the panel itself doesn't represent a consistent size (height) for the icons in the panel. Sometimes the window list, the space above each represented open application is larger at the top than at the bottom and only resizing it will bring a consistent look.

Procedure:

What I do to attempt to overcome this is to resize the panel height.

If i resize it down (make it smaller) the black screen affect doesn't occur. If I try to size it up (make it bigger) then the screen goes black up to the widgets icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen (as I stated earlier in this post).

Let's just say it is very annoying. I have followed the guidance and removed the "present windows" selection. It wasn't resolved for the existing black screen I have now. When I reboot I'll test again.

OK, after rebooting and attempting a resize, the program does the same thing. Black screen from the bottom going up till i get to about 1 inch from the top then I see a portion of the normal back ground, even with present windows off.

A few more things.

1) If I turn off desktop effects and I attempt this I get a white screen instead of black.

2) I tried it on my new HP laptop. I chose to resize the lower panel. It also has the exact same issue. Resizing the panel causes the screen to go black only showing about an inch of normal desktop at the top of the window.

Two different installs, two different computers and the same exact easily reproducible issue.

I get my desktop back by moving the mouse in the upper left corner in both cases

-- getting blackscreen or
-- hide panel or panel and windows (wallpaper is unhide)

after launching programs ( not the equals and not always and must not be the first with opened window )

The upper left corner is configured to show windows from all desktops by default.

follow KWIN-effects are enabled:

*Dialog parent
*Fade
*Login
*Logout
*Gliding
*Minimize animation
*Shadow
*Taskbar thumbnails
*desktop-switch
*Transparency
*show windows
*box with window-preview
*magnify desktop

Advanced tab:
Compositing type: OpenGL
Keep window thumbnails: always
OpenGL mode: texture from pixmap
Texture filter: bilinear
Enabled direct rendering
Enabled use vsync

in use ATI Radeon9600Pro and radeon-driver
OpenSUSE11.1 (32bit) and KDE4.2, Qt 4.4.3

Yesterday I upgraded KDE 4.2 (openSuse 11.1 KDE Factory packeges)

I'm not sure if the problem is solved in those packeges because it happens more or less randomly. But since the upgrade I haven't seen the black screen any more.

I think it is important to note that I turned off desktop effects and rather than get a black screen I get a white screen with the same effect. This is clearly an issue not with kwin, but with KDE 4.2 (at least in my case).

alte_esel wrote:

CJPB wrote:Hi,
just want to confirm that disabling "present windows" also solves it for me.
Had the problem since the last two opensuse11.1 kde2 factory updates i think.
In my case nothing crashes at all, the screen just turns black when lauching an aplication (but only the first time i launch it). I can get the screen back with just throwing the mouse at the upper left corner to enable "present windows" or upper right corner to use "desktop grid" as i have it set up. Everything gets back to normal until i lauch a new app.
I get this with both fglrx and the radeon opensource driver so i don't think it's driver related.
regards,
Carlos

Well what I fund out create a new user account and it will not affected at all,but one thing is that when I login to my new account it`s slowing down,I try to saying when I click on firefox it takes forever or other application the same think it is soooo
sloooow.
I will find out why is so slow.

Thank you everyone to try to helping me:thumbs_up:.

alte_esel

I unistalled system tray it works like new:thumbs_up:.

My problem is solved:-D

I appreciate few guys was so nice and give me hand.

Thank you guys

Alte_esel

I've been having the problem lately. I was just now looking for a quick-fix for it when I thought to try something crazy.
Programs are obviously still running in the background so I thought maybe I could fix it without being able to see what I'm doing...
Press Alt+F2 to bring up KRunner (which you can't see), mine's set up command orientated.. not sure if that matters.
Wait a few seconds...
Type

Code: Select all

kwin --replace

and press return.

Voila! It worked like a charm for me not 20 seconds ago.