Plasma-discover not launching

[phord]

I’m hitting this lately with Plasma 6.2.0. Oddly, it fails to start if I do not specify any backends, but it succeeds if I specify all the backends. But the order matters.

Here are my notes in case it helps someone else.

At first I got nothing until I killed the old process.

$ plasma-discover
^C
$ killall plasma-discover
$ killall plasma-discover
plasma-discover: no process found

Then I got some startup logging, but it would hang quickly and no window would appear.

$ plasma-discover                                             
libs QList("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt6/plugins", "/usr/bin")
org.kde.plasma.libdiscover: OdrsReviewsBackend: Fetch ratings: false
adding empty sources model QStandardItemModel(0x5bf3e89f78c0)
^C

But when I specified the backends to load and included all of them, it worked.

$ plasma-discover --listbackends
Available backends:
* packagekit-backend
* snap-backend
* fwupd-backend
* flatpak-backend
* kns-backend

$ plasma-discover --backends packagekit,fwupd,kns,snap,flatpak
org.kde.plasma.libdiscover: OdrsReviewsBackend: Fetch ratings: false
adding empty sources model QStandardItemModel(0x5a420195d800)
qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/kirigami/dialogs/Dialog.qml:344:18: QML ScrollView: Binding loop detected for property "calculatedImplicitWidth"
qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/kirigami/dialogs/Dialog.qml:344:18: QML ScrollView: Binding loop detected for property "calculatedImplicitHeight"
qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/kirigami/dialogs/Dialog.qml:401:33: QML Binding: Binding loop detected for property "value"
qrc:/qt/qml/org/kde/discover/qml/BrowsingPage.qml:17:1: QML BrowsingPage: Created graphical object was not placed in the graphics scene.

However, I noticed if I specify the backends in the order they were listed, it fails the same as before:

$ plasma-discover --backends packagekit,snap,fwupd,flatpak,kns
org.kde.plasma.libdiscover: OdrsReviewsBackend: Fetch ratings: false
adding empty sources model QStandardItemModel(0x62a8c78bd620)
^C

[metius]

@phord

plasma-discover --backends packagekit,fwupd,kns,snap,flatpak

Same her and workaround worked for me.

Trying to install some updates but I don’t see any for plasma-discover

[metius]

It was working with this workaround until I’ve installed some updates (to try to resolve another issue) and back at square 1. Now Discover is not starting even with this workaround…

[jcdescy]

Greetings. First post here. I just got this problem, too. The workaround doesn’t help. Any ideas?

[Serendipity92x]

Same here. The work around although annoying it did work the last two times I tried it. However now whenever I enter the command I get nothing.

[jcdescy]

My apologies! I just saw this is the neon forum. I assume this is more of a general plasma issue. I don’t use neon. Nevertheless the problem exists. Should I find/start another thread?

Funny thing: When I get the update notification in the tray and I click on it, it does open discover. But if I close that and try to open discover again, it still doesn’t work.

[Serendipity92x]

This worked for me.

pkill discover
plasma-discover --backends packagekit-backend

[Serendipity92x]

Then when in it I had the option to install some missing backends. I did that and now it opens whenever… for now

[slizgi]

@phord

plasma-discover --backends packagekit,fwupd,kns,snap,flatpak

Thanks! This is working for now as a temp solution. BTW.
I know this is Neon help, but I have this issue on latest Fedora KDE Plasma, since like 2–3 days. Any idea for permanent solution?

[makosol]

Same here, I don’t know what to do.

[jonulart]

The same issue has happened to me with Fedora 41 KDE. It’s not just limited to Discover; it also affects the Snap package. Specifically, Discover only opens the first time. However, I found a temporary solution for this issue. The problem seems to be related to the *.knsrc* files, which need to be hidden to prevent them from causing the error in Discover.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to resolve the issue with Snap yet. According to my research, the Snap error occurs due to **squashfs**.

Here’s the temporary solution for Discover that worked for me:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/knsrcfiles/backup
sudo mv /usr/share/knsrcfiles/*.knsrc /usr/share/knsrcfiles/backup/

[Lance_Zimmer]

Your out of order backends worked for me too.

[Shadowfire]

This helped me as a workaround. Thx

the challenge is that this is a workaround because the original commands don’t work and the icon for plasma-dicover updates in the notify area still has the same issue of not being able to open plasma-discovery when you click on the icon to see the updates to install.

I would like plasma-discover and it nofiy icon to work like they are suppose to.

I made a new post here to see if it can get fixed properly.

KDE Neon, plasma-discovery and notify icon not working properly

Recently, I have had the plasma-discover not want to load when I click on the icon in the task bar when I want to install a new app or check for updates, or when the (plasma-discovery notify) icon in the notification area pops-up and lets me know I have updates. Also, when I try to load plasma-discovery from konsole I get the following - [2025-01-05_14-38] Stays hung up like this and doesn’t load plasma-discover. I have already done - sudo pkcon refresh -and- sudo pkcon update This did …

[vert]

@Plasma-discover not launching

pkill discover plasma-discover --backends packagekit-backend

And here we are July 2025 Ive updated to Ubuntu 25.04 running KDE Plasma 6.3.4 and I have exactly the same problem with no solution, that I can find on this site. Is there a real solution other than the $ killall workaround?

[vert]

@Plasma-discover not launching

pkill discover plasma-discover --backends packagekit-backend

As it does for me, however the Plasma Discovery app only keeps running as long as the terminal plasma-discover process is running in the terminal. Soon as you close the terminal so too Plasma Discovery app shuts down and can’t be relaunched.

[Herbmeyer]

Hey!
I’ve finally switched from Windows to Kubuntu. I really like it so far!
I’m using the Kubuntu 24 LTS version.
However, I have also encountered this problem. Will a fix be delivered to the 24 LTS version?
Why hasn’t this been fixed yet? Is there a bug ticket for it?
Do I really have to change the command to run the backends in other directions? If the fix is that simple, why can’t it be done automatically?

[vert]

This thread is very similar to " Discover not working on Kubuntu 24.04" in which the solution was never found and yet the thread just ends… I’m not not sure how that works but it looks like this thread is headed the same way, lots of people experiencing the problem which still exists today without solution, other than that crazy terminal work round aka,
$ pkill discover plasma-discover --backends packagekit-backend

[vert]

I have found that Discovery when executed for the first time after a reboot, apart from launching as it should, will only list SNAP installed apps, e.g. OnlyOffice and Thunderbird, installed or not and only if you specifically search for them. Pic 1.
All subsequent attempts to get Discovery to list SNAP apps, using the terminal workaround to get Discovery to launch, will not find SNAP apps,

installed or otherwise. Pic 2

[pke]

I turned on the pattern recognition part of my brain, played around a bit, and it seems like it hangs indefinitely at startup whenever --backends contains snap right after packagekit, otherwise it works:

plasma-discover --backends kns,packagekit,snap,flatpak,fwupd # Hangs. Btw this is the default on my machine.
plasma-discover --backends kns,packagekit,snap # Hangs
plasma-discover --backends packagekit,snap # Hangs
plasma-discover --backends snap,packagekit # Works
plasma-discover --backends packagekit,kns,snap # Works
plasma-discover --backends snap,fwupd,packagekit