I am using KDE Plasma on X11 with an Nvidia RTX 2080Ti and for a while now, persisting through multiple system updates, panels have started freezing randomly, refusing to change automatically and refusing any user interaction.
Notably, unlike other cases I have read about, it is exclusively the panels, which includes my clock, task bar, all that stuff. The wallpaper also stops working, simply displaying what was on that screen at the time of the freeze, but the windows themselves are still functional. It happened randomly every now and then for a while, but recently it’s gotten pretty bad.
I have already looked for fixes and the only result (aside from half a dozen commands to restart plasmashell, none of which have even worked, I need to log out and back in each time it freezes) was to go into the Plasma Renderer and change the Render Loop to “threaded”. Sadly that didn’t fix it either. Most mentions I’ve seen of this problem wrote that it was supposed to be fixed in Plasma 6, and was a Wayland issue, but I specifically have had this problem since Plasma 6 and am still on X11.
Do any of you have an idea what might be going on and/or how to stop this from happening?
Some update where these errors weren’t reported during testing. I have had several freezes when notifications display or I use the panel which is rare for me but becoming more common lately so I have been noticing it. Hopefully KDE can fix this before next release or sooner.
If you really need your device for work etc I would suggest to install a window manger like openbox or i3 alongside it
I’ve found just waiting about 30 or so seconds works, seems to happen on my system when a notification and the panel are displayed at the same time so maybe disabling notifcations if not used could also be a temp work around but I have not tried as it doesn’t affect me too much and not really bothered by it.
Well yeah, otherwise they’d be kinda pointless, would they not? The clock is a widget, the icons only task manager is a widget, the system tray is a widget. Anything but a blank panel is a widget.
Yes exactly. I’m comin from the trial-and-error side.
You might want to try:
A new user to test (you can simply make one in Sys. Settings)
Try the standard panel layout from the Breeze global theme. (and henceforth slowly adding back your adjustments)
I myself had panel issues on Wayland that I solved by logging into X11 once and adjusting my custom min/max size to bigger, just yesterday. (EnOS)
I am however exactly observing what you describe on Plasma 5.25 when coming back from lock-screen or shut-off monitors, or with Comic Strip (which is KDE preinstalled but would be considered third party?) and its ViewsAmerica strip , or with flatpak Kasts when I switch Activities, and it is not displayed in all of them XD, (on Debian).
The problem with the new user is that the issue appears randomly, so unless I do that for like a week or more, I can’t be quite sure it’s gone (although if it appears early that can end the test run of course). And of course using a completely different user for a week means I’d have to set up everything I use regularly again just for a test…
I can reset the panel layout though, sure, that might do the trick. Let’s hope it does.
Resetting the panel layout did not fix the problem :c
I guess there’s no other choice but to try a separate user, even if that sounds like a huge workflow interruption
As I mentioned in the main post, this issue has been happening for months now. I was kinda just waiting and hoping for an update to fix it, the way things usually go.
You know how I mentioned waiting for an update for months?
Did one yesterday and now for over 24h I haven’t had a freeze and other miscellaneous bugs are also fixed. That doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to be gone, but so far I’m hopeful.
Blank panel’s a widget too.