Login splash screen disappeared

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I set a login splash screen in System Settings > Colors & Themes > Splash Screen, but it never appears at login.

Here’s the output of journalctl -b -g splash --case-sensitive=false:

jui 17 09:30:41 archWKS systemd[1256]: Created slice Slice /app/dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash.
jui 17 09:30:41 archWKS systemd[1256]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@0.service.
jui 17 09:30:42 archWKS systemd[1256]: Starting Splash screen shown during boot...
jui 17 09:30:42 archWKS systemd[1256]: Starting KSplash "ready" Stage...
jui 17 09:30:42 archWKS systemd[1256]: Finished KSplash "ready" Stage.
jui 17 09:30:43 archWKS systemd[1256]: Finished Splash screen shown during boot.
jui 17 09:30:43 archWKS systemd[1256]: plasma-ksplash.service: Consumed 211ms CPU time, 290.4M memory peak.

On other boots, there are some other lines, including 2 related to some failure about 1 min after the other events:

jui 17 09:48:55 archWKS systemd[2513]: Created slice Slice /app/dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash.  
jui 17 09:48:55 archWKS systemd[2513]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@0.service.  
jui 17 09:48:55 archWKS systemd[2513]: Starting Splash screen shown during boot...  
jui 17 09:48:55 archWKS systemd[1262]: Removed slice Slice /app/dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash.  
jui 17 09:48:55 archWKS systemd[2513]: Starting KSplash "ready" Stage...  
jui 17 09:48:55 archWKS systemd[2513]: Finished KSplash "ready" Stage.  
jui 17 09:48:56 archWKS systemd[2513]: Finished Splash screen shown during boot.  
jui 17 09:48:56 archWKS systemd[2513]: plasma-ksplash.service: Consumed 190ms CPU time, 295.1M memory peak.  
jui 17 09:48:56 archWKS systemd[2513]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service.  
jui 17 09:49:56 archWKS systemd[2513]: dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE  
jui 17 09:49:56 archWKS systemd[2513]: dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

The occurrence of either one of those log excerpts at boot seems random, sometimes it’ll look like the first (without the dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service failures), sometimes it’ll be like the second. Regardless, the splash screen never appears at login.

I tested with a new test user to see what would happens, and here are my findings:

  • Upon first login, I see the default KDE splash screen, everything works fine
  • I switched the theme from breeze to breeze dark
  • Log out and log in again, no splash screen
  • If I change the splash screen from the default to something else, next login I see it for a split second only
    So essentially, the only time I get the expected behaviour is on the first login. I’m not sure if changing the theme from light to dark was what triggered the issue (I switched back to light, the splash screen did not reappear), or if it’s simply that only the first login works regardless of what I try (I’ll test that later today)

System info:
Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.16.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1
Kernel Version: 6.15.6-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland

2

Did some more testing with another test user.

First login, every works, I get a nice splash screen.

Without changing anything, if I log out and log back in, I only see the splash screen for a split second. I can’t be sure, but I feel like this behaviour is what I’m seeing on my regular user (where I don’t see the splash screen at all); maybe something on my regular user takes enough time to mask the split second of splash screen I see on the test user.

Here’s the output of journalctl -q -b -g splash --case-sensitive=false on the test user, after the two login attempts:

jui 17 10:57:00 archWKS systemd[9540]: Created slice Slice /app/dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash.
jui 17 10:57:00 archWKS systemd[9540]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@0.service.
jui 17 10:57:00 archWKS systemd[9540]: Starting Splash screen shown during boot...
jui 17 10:57:01 archWKS systemd[9540]: Starting KSplash "ready" Stage...
jui 17 10:57:01 archWKS systemd[9540]: Finished KSplash "ready" Stage.
jui 17 10:57:05 archWKS systemd[9540]: Finished Splash screen shown during boot.
jui 17 10:57:05 archWKS systemd[9540]: plasma-ksplash.service: Consumed 494ms CPU time, 286.4M memory peak.
jui 17 10:59:24 archWKS systemd[9540]: Removed slice Slice /app/dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash.
jui 17 10:59:28 archWKS systemd[10711]: Created slice Slice /app/dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash.
jui 17 10:59:28 archWKS systemd[10711]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@0.service.
jui 17 10:59:28 archWKS systemd[10711]: Starting Splash screen shown during boot...
jui 17 10:59:29 archWKS systemd[10711]: Starting KSplash "ready" Stage...
jui 17 10:59:29 archWKS systemd[10711]: Finished KSplash "ready" Stage.
jui 17 10:59:30 archWKS systemd[10711]: Finished Splash screen shown during boot.
jui 17 10:59:30 archWKS systemd[10711]: plasma-ksplash.service: Consumed 197ms CPU time, 276.1M memory peak.
jui 17 10:59:30 archWKS systemd[10711]: Started dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service.
jui 17 11:00:31 archWKS systemd[10711]: dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
jui 17 11:00:31 archWKS systemd[10711]: dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

10:59:24 or 10:59:28 would match the approximate moment when I logged back in for the second time. As you can see, the first login did not display any failure related to a dbus-:1.2-org.kde.KSplash@1.service unit, but the second did.