I'm not sure if this is the right place for this post, but I can't find a better forum for this.

Since last update KDE4 got stuck at startup, at the splash screen. I don't know why, it only happens on one of my computers. It got stuck after showing the world icon on the splash screen.

I have been searching for a log, but I don't know if KDE4 makes one or where it is supose to be, not at /var/log/ or ~/.kde4/var/log/, I've checked. I don't know either what is KDE4 loading when the world icon appears on the splash.

Any help will be welcome ^_^

KDE itself does not have a log, but X does. it is called Xorg..log ( in /var/log ). Do you have another user on that computer you can try with to login to KDE4? if that user is unaffected we can look at your profile, else it is the install of KDE4 on that machine ( i think your profile is incompatible and something does not like it ).

if you do not have another user, try selecting the "failsafe" option at the logon screen ( under the session menu usually in the bottom left corner ) this will open a terminal as you. then you can then open the usual administrative tools ( as long as you know the executable names, you can check on another ubuntu machine ) to add a user. type logout or exit to return to the logon screen. be sure to set the session back to KDE4, or whatever you normally use ("default")

Is KDE stuck before or after the Desktop icon is loaded? I had a similar problem with KDE where it freezed on login as well.

My problem was related to a dual monitor setup and either the wrong drivers (the dreaded mesa instead of fglrx) or compositing being enabled - which should normally take you to your desktop anyway, but not show any windows.

You can disable Compositing by doing a "Console login" (ALT+N at, or choose the proper option from the menu) and editing kwinrc in ~/.kde4/share/config/. Under the entry [Compositing] set "Enabled=true" to "Enabled=false".

bcooksley wrote:KDE itself does not have a log, but X does. it is called Xorg..log ( in /var/log ).

Yeah, I know, but I can't find anything wrong at the X server log.

bcooksley wrote:Do you have another user on that computer you can try with to login to KDE4? if that user is unaffected we can look at your profile, else it is the install of KDE4 on that machine ( i think your profile is incompatible and something does not like it ).

With other user it works fine, so it's definitively my profile

mensch wrote:Is KDE stuck before or after the Desktop icon is loaded? I had a similar problem with KDE where it freezed on login as well.

Yes, it's before the desktop icon. It's just after the world icon appears at the splash.

mensch wrote:You can disable Compositing by doing a "Console login" (ALT+N at, or choose the proper option from the menu) and editing kwinrc in ~/.kde4/share/config/. Under the entry [Compositing] set "Enabled=true" to "Enabled=false".

Compositing is disabled, but I had the effects enabled before the update, could be that?

Korosu_Itai wrote:Yes, it's before the desktop icon. It's just after the world icon appears at the splash.

In my case it was me mucking around with Xinerama and defining multiple screens in my Xorg.conf what caused the freeze. So your problem might also come from a faulty xorg.conf or unavailable display drivers.

What could help is backing up your current xorg.conf and executing "dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg" as root. You will lose all of your customisations so do back up so you can restore portions later on. By logging in with this fresh xorg.conf it might revert to vesa or mesa drivers, so if you have ATI or Nvidia drivers installed you should point to them in you xorg.conf (with ATI cards you can do this for example automatically by running "aticonfig --intitial -f" as root).

I had that effect with a broken plasma configuration, too. So just backup ~/.kde4/share/config/plasmarc and plasma-appletsrc, before you start again. Maybe that helps.

You could be right, try neverendingo option first because I believe it could very well be a broken plasma config. [size=xx-small]I mucked around with my xorg.conf and plasma-appletsrc at the same time, so either one of them could have been the culprit.[/size]

neverendingo wrote:I had that effect with a broken plasma configuration, too. So just backup ~/.kde4/share/config/plasmarc and plasma-appletsrc, before you start again. Maybe that helps.

Sadly that didn't work, it get stuck at the same point.

mensch wrote:What could help is backing up your current xorg.conf and executing "dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg" as root.

Idem, this didn't work either

Thanks for the help anyway.

I have deleted my entire profile (made a backup)

Code: Select all

mv .kde4 .kde4_backup

But guess what, it didn't work. And that's really weird, if I can login into KDE4 with another user without problems, it must be something of my settings, then why I can't login into KDE4 with a fresh .kde4?

Hi Korosu_Itai,

I used to had the same problem but Ctrl + Alt + F8 -> Ctrl + Alt + F7 always helped.

Luckilly this problem is now only a bad memory for me. I hope the same will be for you as well.

tkoski wrote:I used to had the same problem but Ctrl + Alt + F8 -> Ctrl + Alt + F7 always helped.

I don't understand, how can help switching terminal? :S

Terminal switching will cause Xorg to completely redraw the screen, and it probably gets Qt, etc. to completely redraw as well, thus solving graphical corruption.

bcooksley wrote:Terminal switching will cause Xorg to completely redraw the screen, and it probably gets Qt, etc. to completely redraw as well, thus solving graphical corruption.

ahhhh, now I understand. I've tried it but at the F8 terminal only appears a text terminal with a line flashing, I can't write on it or anything. At the F7 terminal is still KDE4 stuck at the splash screen.

Finally I found the problem, because an unknown reason the .ICEauthority file was owned by root instead of my user :S

Now I can log into KDE4 again. Thanks a lot for all the help ^_^

Hello All,

I am at a similar impass. The sad thing is that I have tried all the above and failed. Even failsafe does not work. Other log-ins work and I even copied the profile files to a new user and that user failed. Failsafe does not work - just drops me back to the log-in screen. Gnome flies perfectly.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

@OzRattler: please start a new topic, and include the content of ~/.xsession-errors without having logged into the same user with GNOME. It is important that you try with KDE then immediately copy the file.