Plasmashell and KRunner using freezing with high CPU usage

I recently decided to try Fedora Kinoite, and so far am having a good experience. I started on Fedora 41, then last week I updated seamlessly to Fedora 42, keeping a pinned snapshot at 41.20250318.0. Today, on version 42.20250326.n.0, plasmashell started acting up, having frequent system stutters (can be observed by mouse movement, for example) and freezing completely after a couple minutes or less.

The stutters start as soon as I log-in, and top shows abnormally high CPU usages for plasmashell (around 100% and kwin_wayland (around 50%). Interacting with the system, such as trying to search in the “Start Menu”, makes the stutters more frequent, longer, and faster to cause complete freezing.

Killing plasmashell solves the issue, but leaves me without the desktop, of course. I can still use apps.

Using KRunner displays similar behavior, but only while the search is active. Since the stutters grow with time, I can use it to open an app and everything returns to normal after it closes.

Importantly, reverting to a previous Fedora Kinoite version did not help (I tried the pinned 41.20250318.0 and the rollback 42.20250325.n.0), so I don’t think it is a Fedora issue.

Plasma version is 6.3.3 in all ostree snapshots, which I thought should not be the case.

How can I fix or better troubleshoot this?

Hi! To help folks best guide you, could you please provide your basic system information from the Info Center app? The Copy Details button is the easiest way to get that ready to paste in:

Plasma 6.3.3 is both the currently-released upstream version from KDE, and the currently distributed version in Fedora 41, so it makes sense that the Fedora 42 beta has it as well :slight_smile:

Operating System: Fedora Linux 41
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.3
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.12.0
Qt Version: 6.8.2
Kernel Version: 6.13.6-200.fc41.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 6 Ă— AMD Ryzen 5 4500U with Radeon Graphics
Memory: 7.1 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 81YM
System Version: IdeaPad 5 14ARE05

Hmm, just to check, in your KRunner settings, do you have the Recent Files or Web Search Keywords plugins enabled? If so, does the issue - at least with KRunner - persist if those are disabled?

I was thinking about those because of these bug reports where some similar-sounding issues were popping up:

It might also be worthwhile to check your system journal (using sudo journalctl) for any persistently repeating errors?

I do have Recent Files and Web Search plugins enabled. However, the problem went away suddenly, before I even tried disabling those plugins.

I had already tried rebooting a few times, and read somewhere that disabling File Indexing might be the solution. I had tried that, but it didn’t work, even after a reboot. After a long session with plasmashell killed, though, on the next boot the issues were gone. No ostree update nor anything.

I did look into journalctl a bit before asking for help here, but nothing screamed at me. I am not very experienced at reading linux logs, though.

Anyway, thank you for your help. I may experiment with file indexing again and come back here if I find anything.

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