Recently (during roughly the last month), I started encountering an issue while using a Wayland session in KDE.
After logging in and using the desktop normally for some time (typically around a day or more), some applications fail to open new windows. When this happens, the terminal shows the following error:
Maximum number of clients reached
From what I can tell, this happens when the application tries to connect to XWayland.
Environment
Operating System: Fedora Linux 43
KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.23.0
Qt Version: 6.10.2
Kernel Version: 6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i5-10210U CPU @ 1.60GHz
Memory: 16 GiB of RAM (15.4 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: Intel® UHD Graphics
Graphics Processor 2: NVIDIA GeForce MX350
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 82DN
System Version: Lenovo XiaoXinPro-13IML 2020
Behavior
- The issue does not happen immediately after login.
- It only occurs after the system has been running for some time.
- When it happens, new X11 windows fail to open.
- Restarting the session temporarily resolves the issue.
Additional context
Two months ago this problem did not occur at all, and my desktop usage pattern has not significantly changed. I use the system very frequently, but in roughly the same way as before.
Questions
- What could cause the XWayland client limit to be reached?
- Could this indicate an X11 client leak from some application?
- Are there recommended ways to diagnose which program is consuming the XWayland clients?
If helpful, I can provide command outputs or logs.