Kdeconnect seems to cause panel freeze on logon

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Lately I am finding that the Kubuntu panel on my Plasma 6.4.2 from beta PPA, but happened on Kubuntu 25.04 supplied Plasma 6.3, hangs about 30 seconds after logon after the desktop has finished loading. It’s possible to interact with restored and loaded windows on the desktop (Firefox, Konsole etc.) but trying to access anything on the panel doesn’t do anything by clicking on apps, accessing clipboard etc. until after about 30 seconds when it all springs back to life with the backlogged clicks activating.

Running journalctl --user -u plasma-plasmashell.service -S ‘2025-07-03 16:34’ or whatever login time is, gives a few errors, but just after the panel springs back to life the journal shows these entries from kdeconnect amongst others:

Jul 03 16:34:04 willow systemd[4747]: Started plasma-plasmashell.service - KDE Plasma Workspace.
Jul 03 16:34:04 willow plasmashell[21148]: KPackageStructure of KPluginMetaData(pluginId:“P-Connor.PlasmaDrawer”, fileName: “/home/kevin/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/P-Connor.PlasmaDrawer/metadata.json”) does not match requested format “Plasma/Applet”
Jul 03 16:34:05 willow plasmashell[21148]: kf.plasma.quick: Applet preload policy set to 1
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”
Jul 03 16:34:55 willow plasmashell[21148]: kdeconnect.interfaces: error while refreshing device list “Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.”

There always seems to be 7 kdeconnect.interfaces entries in the journal. I have saved the parts of the syslog with the kdeconnect generated from using the extra logging set in the QT_LOGGING_RULES environment from KDEConnect - KDE UserBase Wiki. I have attached.
These log entries were generated whilst my iPhone is locked.

My iPhone running IOS 18.5 and KDE Connect version 0.5.1 (1) has paired successfully and can communicate with the PC.

Operating System: Kubuntu 25.04
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.14.0
Qt Version: 6.8.3
Kernel Version: 6.14.0-23-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

Any ideas on how to debug this further gratefully received, but please remember that I am just an novice at this.
I have apt purged and removed the .config entry for kdeconnect to start with a new configuration after reinstall.
The ufw firewall has the suggested entries in it from the wiki.

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This happens to me too on Debian Sid, KDE 6.3.5. My phone is an Android phone. I’ll try to disable KDE Connect to see if it makes a difference…

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When I completely removed kdeconnect and logged in as usual, the freeze did not happen, but I didn’t try just disabling the service.

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I am getting this after release upgrading to 25.04 on my desktop. The journalctl entries suggest that kdeconnect is trying to use bluetooth, and this times out. The desktop naturally does not have bluetooth.

Is there a way to tell kdeconnect not to try bluetooth?

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I have dug out a really old Bluetooth adapter from way back (it mentions MS Vista and PDA’s on the blurb).
Plugged it in and paired my iPhone successfully. Reinstalled kdeconnect and logged out and in again and the panel freezing seems to have disappeared.

I have raised a wishlist bug on the tracker - 507474 – Bluetooth switch in settings

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IMO that’s a really good idea, but surely there’s a bug in plasmashell or kwin that gives the hang?

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Thanks for the reply, it’s very possible that there is a bug elsewhere, but, not being in anyway a developer, I don’t know of a way to find out. All I know is that, with kdeconnect installed, the panel freezes for about 30 seconds, remove kdeconnect and that freeze goes away. Add in a Bluetooth adapter etc. with kdeconnect installed and again the freeze disappears. That’s all of the diagnosing that I am able to do I’m afraid.