KDE borked - unable to get to desktop

[Nish]

2012 KDE regularly updated at least once a week.  I do not remember if this was the first boot after an update, box was up for a day or two.  It is possible.  The update seemed to go fine and I don't recall any large number of packages being removed or anything like that.

2 other machines on approximately same update schedule have no problem.  Hmm...laptop has been up two days will reboot to confirm that.

I get the clock icon, I see the kde splash begin then poof and I am at kdm screen login.  Login as user just dumps me back to login screen again.  Ditto root.

I have booted to failsafe and have some X, have mouse pointer, etc.  In the terminal I can type startkde and get the message it crashed.  It seems to try it twice.  "Communication problem with KDED - it probably crashed" If somebody can give directions how to copy that output to a thumbdrive from command line I will give you the exact messages or I can take a pic of the screen and post.  I have done apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade from there but it is updated (least as of last night) and have gimp held back.  See some posts about that but don't see how it is related.

This is my former main machine but it no longer is.  If I have to reinstall I can as it was all backed up to migrate to new. Would be nice to keep as is but if I can't... I have had worse things happen.

[Ramchu]

Some info of the computer that you are having trouble with would be required in order for someone to help you.

What video card ?
How much RAM ?
ect, ect

Please, help us help you.

[TerryN]

This has been reported before.

You can try removing prelink if you have it installed or downgrade the NVIDIA drivers.

See here:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,99564.msg845118.html#msg845118
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,98362.msg833192.html#msg833192
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,100956.0.html

[Nish]

Some info of the computer that you are having trouble with would be required in order for someone to help you.

What video card ?
How much RAM ?
ect, ect

Please, help us help you.

BIOSTAR A785GE AM2+/AM3 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz Socket AM3 45W Single-Core CPU unlocked to a Athlon dual core (Regor)
2 GB of Mushkin or Corsair RAM
hmmm, onboard sound
and a geforce GT 220
no USB drives or accessory attached to it either, I know there is a problem with KDE newer than ours and USB drives or accessory being attached

This has been reported before.

You can try removing prelink if you have it installed or downgrade the NVIDIA drivers.

See here:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,99564.msg845118.html#msg845118
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,98362.msg833192.html#msg833192
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,100956.0.html

Prelink was removed awhile back  and how do you downgrade drivers from the command line? I did check out the links but the issue doesn't manifest the same with this system anyway. There is a thread in the phoenix forum where somebody has similar symptoms. But I don't want to be crossposting and confusing the issue.

Ok, another update and I have combined posts here.  I don't think it is related to nvidia drivers because I just went in there with vim and edited the xorg.conf to use "nv" rather than "nvidia".  Rebooted brought me to that limited X again, I typed startkde and got the crash again.

UPDATED thread title. It is definitely a KDE issue.  Not nvidia.  I installed LXDE from command line.  No issue on logging into desktop, turned nvidia on, rebooted and no issue with LXDE.   Do I need to reinstall kde or a portion thereof?

[Phil]

Happened to me too.

Type PCC in the terminal, for PCC

Or if you have LXDE use that to get there.

I did the akonadi commands in item 1, and then logged in as root. Did not change the graphics card settings.

Also I messed it up first time so did a clonezilla recovery, which broke soon after updating.

Eventually the above items sorted it.

[Nish]

Happened to me too.

Type PCC in the terminal, for PCC

Or if you have LXDE use that to get there.

I did the akonadi commands in item 1, and then logged in as root. Did not change the graphics card settings.

Also I messed it up first time so did a clonezilla recovery, which broke soon after updating.

Eventually the above items sorted it.

Hey Phil!  thanks for the reply but all that just flew over my head.  I do have X and nvidia just fine in LXDE.  OK so I don't have to mess with command line.  Now, what is this akonadi commands in item 1 thing?  And I don't bother with cloning or making liveCDs or whatever, I keep my data backed up and frankly linux is usually such a quick thing to install works fine for me.  Off to google akonadi commands   OK googled, still over my head.  Eh, I can use LXDE if I have to use that box which isn't much now.  But boy, am I lost.  If it was a main machine I would be crying into the beer I don't have.

[monsee]

Can you try to reach your desktop (the root desktop, precisely) using NOT failsafe-boot but normal-boot, using the root account?  (NOT you User account)
If you can do it... maybe the problem can be into your User folder settings (maybe, the System have some difficulty to read some settings, due you cannot go on you user-desktop).

[Nish]

Can you try to reach your desktop (the root desktop, precisely) using NOT failsafe-boot but normal-boot, using the root account?  (NOT you User account)
If you can do it... maybe the problem can be into your User folder settings (maybe, the System have some difficulty to read some settings, due you cannot go on you user-desktop).

Cannot load KDE desktop as root or user both bring me back to login. If I startkde from a command line can see that kded crashed. In X I don't get a message, just poof back to login.

I installed LXDE so that I have a functional desktop until I can get this fixed.  If I can't get this fixed. 

[Phil]

Hi Nish,

Extract from DJ on akonadi, link one above (I have kmail so may be due to that):

After logging in, open a terminal and issue these commands, as regular user:

akonadictl stop
killall akonadi s
killall akonadi s
akonadictl start

The second killall is for good measure. You can then check the status of Akonadi with:

akonadictl status


Next recommendation is to log in as root in KDE mode, after the above it worked properly

Other suggestion, cant remember if I did this, was to switch the graphics card to vesa via PCC (select xorg, then vesa)

ALSO I strongly recommend you save your system (and the data which you already do). I use a clonezilla live disk. Occasionally when something goes wrong, I revert to an earlier working system. I have had two recoveries on two different systems in the last fortnight. From time to time these things happen, so for me not an issue. I get back the system I have built up and the way i want it.

[AS]

Code: [Select]

killall akonadi s
what is supposed to do the final 's' in the above command ?

[Phil]

Second killall "for good measure" apparently. refer to DJ, link 1.

Nish's symptoms as the same as happened to me, good luck

[AS]

Code: [Select]

killall akonadi s
what is supposed to do the final 's' in the above command ?

Second killall "for good measure" apparently. refer to DJ, link 1.

nope, that's a typo! 

$ killall --help
Usage: killall [OPTION]... [--] NAME...
       killall -l, --list
       killall -V, --version

  -e,--exact          require exact match for very long names
  -I,--ignore-case    case insensitive process name match
  -g,--process-group  kill process group instead of process
  -i,--interactive    ask for confirmation before killing
  -l,--list           list all known signal names
  -q,--quiet          don't print complaints
  -r,--regexp         interpret NAME as an extended regular expression
  -s,--signal SIGNAL  send this signal instead of SIGTERM
  -u,--user USER      kill only process(es) running as USER
  -v,--verbose        report if the signal was successfully sent
  -V,--version        display version information
  -w,--wait           wait for processes to die

[Nish]

Second killall "for good measure" apparently. refer to DJ, link 1.

Nish's symptoms as the same as happened to me, good luck

I don't think so, Phil.  I am going to remove KDE and reinstall it.  Can't hurt, I have LXDE running fine.

[djohnston]

Code: [Select]

killall akonadi s
what is supposed to do the final 's' in the above command ?

Second killall "for good measure" apparently. refer to DJ, link 1.

nope, that's a typo!  

Yep. That should have been killall -s KILL akonadi and I was never found out ... until now.   Don't really know if that was a typo, or I was trying to go from memory, or what. Thanks, as.

Nish,

Are you able to decipher the content in those links?

[Phil]

Hi Nish,

First time round I made a hash of it. tried to remove and re-install KDE via synaptic, no cure. Did a recovery via clonezilla and applied DJs solution as per earlier post, and that did seem to work.