Some Instability Since Updating to Plasma 6

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Never really had any issues with KDE Neon, but last night had crash after crash with PCloud’s application, which also lost its icon in the system tray, and also crash after crash with Firefox, which I logged and reported to Mozilla.

PCloud’s application worked flawlessly before. I’ve tried updating it. Since gave up and will just use the web interface for now. However, PCloud is an excellent service and the application used to really work well on KDE Neon.

Also was having issues with MegaSync’s desktop application, so uninstalled that also.

Both used to be well prized applications on my KDE Neon.

And of course my restart button doesn’t work, so I use ‘reboot’ now to restart. Not a big deal, but seems odd to finally ship Plasma 6 with so obvious a bug.

Otherwise, haven’t yet had much time to use Plasma 6. Hope there are stability improvements over the next few weeks.

Just had another Firefox crash when I was trying to view/adjust my display settings by right-clicking on the Desktop and selecting Configure Display Settings.

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Have noticed the main issue with Plasma 6 seems that it doesn’t multitask processes well. For example, just opened up Discover while at the same time trying to log in to my VPN using Eddie, and this caused a crash. Had to reboot my system to be able to use Eddie. Probably is stable when doing one thing at a time, but issues seem to arise when I’m trying to do too much at once. Never had such issues with the previous version of Neon.

Update: so many crashes and freezes. Incredibly frustrating at times since I was used to going great lengths of time without a single issue. Feels like I’m back on the very early days of Windows when crashes were normal. Even worse though. Really am surprised KDE rolled this out so prematurely. The stability of the current release is like some kind of nightly development release. Not what I’d expect from auto-updated software for the everyday end user.

Guess I was lucky with previous KDE Neon releases. Now would think Kubuntu is the better option for most people.

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X11 or Wayland? Wayland is known for its instability and the instability still persists after the upstream decided to switch to Wayland by default.

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Wayland. I’m so frustrated and shocked by this upgrade. So many issues. There should be a proper warning before the system is updated to something so error-prone and unstable. Was happy with KDE Neon until now. Makes me want to use default Ubuntu or else Kubuntu. Disappointed in the KDE community for putting out a release like this. This has the stability of a nightly development release for programmers whose lives revolve around tinkering with unstable code.

Already had to fsck my disk just to get it boot again.

I thought any release available with the auto-update would be rather stable and well tested.

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Were you also using Wayland before? Wayland in Plasma 5.27 should have the same issue.

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I was using whatever the default was, which I think was Wayland. I’m not a sophisticated user. Just like software that works without much knowledge from the user (me).

Do you think a fresh install should be more stable? Are some issues being caused by a mixture of old and new code?

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Could be I was using X11? Auto-type in KeePassXC was working and now it’s not. Supposedly it’s not supposed to work on Wayland unless you do some tinkering. I was using whatever the default was. Thought it was Wayland, but don’t know for sure.

I read: “I just installed the lastest KDE Neon, running Plasma 5.27, and by default it’s using X11.”

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Just verified since I have a backup ISO on a USB drive of a version of KDE Neon close to what I was using. I was using X11. Now I am using Wayland. That’s the big difference. KDE Neon suddenly changed the default to Wayland.

Therefore, I expect the bugs to be worked out over the next 6 months with continual updates from KDE.

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I’m really sorry this happened. The roll-out of Neon’s packaging of Plasma 6 was unacceptable, and we’ll be conducting an investigation to determine how it happened and make sure it doesn’t recur.

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Hi there!

First of all, I like so much working under KDE Neon and Plasma! I have been using that environment exclusively for some years now (although I have really little technical knowledge about it).

After last KDE Neon update, yesterday for me, I have been experiencing the same issues described by @Salt84 and the conclusion is identical: It is not usable! But falling back to X11 server, when starting session, seems resolving all the problems, even with Plasma 6.0.0 (thanks you very much for the analysis)

What I was observing with Wayland sessions: after some time (10~15 minutes), most often on user input, my external screens, plugged though HDMI and USB-C Hub, would turn black, with only the mouse cursor visible on top (reactive). The laptop screen on the other part would either turn black with “@~@” string printed or remain usable (to sometime turn black a couple of seconds after). The graphics sometimes went back to normal after a couple of seconds (rarely, and not restoring all application).

To exit that state, you may run (if you still have a working screen) sudo systemctl restart sddm - it’s a bit rough, and the whole session will restart, but screens should be back up and the KDE integrated applications should be correctly restored (I tested with Elisa and Konsole). Others, like Firefox, Chrome, Chrome PWA, Electron apps, have exited (sometimes with impossible bug reports dialog), and should now be manually restarted…

If it can help, here is a short list of what seemed to provoke the graphical bugs on my PC:

  • Window focus change ~ sometimes, often after 10minutes
  • Virtual desktop change ~ sometimes, often after 10minutes
  • Copy / paste service calls (buffer, I suppose) ~ sometimes, often after 10minutes
  • Discovery search results (always), after typing enter (not always nuking the screens)
  • Moving files ~ often

Global memory consumption is not responsible for it (crashes occurred on my PC with RAM consumption lower than 30%). That may not exclude issues with KDE own memory restrictions though (sorry I don’t know how to log it)

Please contact me, if some logging information may help digging further, I assume so few information on my configuration will probably not help… From what I understand though, KDE Plasma 6 + Wayland should still be considered early, hence those bugs may as well be ignored as long as Wayland is not considered 100% supported.

Another information for users like me that set automatic session login, as the missing session screen prevents selecting X11 at session start (Wayland being imposed as the default.): The previous link Startup and Shutdown is no longer available in Workspace menu of the System Settings (which makes the bug even a bit worse!).
You will find it back in System settings > Appearance & style > Colors & Themes > Login Screen (SDDM), by clicking Behavior… button in the top bar (deselect “Automatically log in”, default session type seems not saved nor used anyway).

A final praise for the KDE Neon team: please switch back urgently to X11 as the session default, if it is possible, for most users in the state I described above will very certainly quit definitively Neon! If it is not possible, maybe consider upgrading quickly users to Plasma 6.0.1 which seems to address some of the issues I listed above? (that’s to be double checked, but it cannot stay in its current state!)

Nonetheless, thank you for KDE and KDE Neon distributions, as it is an awesome environment! This has been my first message in years using them…

Best regards,

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I agree with you. Wayland is not ready for primetime. X11 should remain the default until Wayland is proven to work correctly with Plasma. From what I have seen, I believe Wayland is still one or two years away from being stable. I will be staying in X11 until I have no choice.

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OH - I am so sad that Wayland is a thing now - I’ve used KDE for years and love it. But now I am having trouble navigating.

  • I experience that when I click on a window, if any window is behind, that one gets raised above the current window in front, which I was trying to bring to focus.
  • Xmodmap is no longer working
  • xdotool is not working
  • Solaar is not working - so I switched to logid
  • When switching back to X11, all is laggy and unusable.

I’m using KDE professionally, so it’s a bit of a crisis. I am contemplating if I should switch to a different distro. What are you guys doing about it?

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Just got 6.0.2. No changes.

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Why not simply use X11 like I am?

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I did that, but it freezes constantly - you know, seconds here and there all the time.

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I did that, but it freezes constantly - you know, seconds here and there all the time.

Did you try again after updating to 6.0.2 ?

This sounds like a bug fixed with 6.0.2 for X11.

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Hi @meven. What I am doing is logging in to X11 instead of Wayland, and when I do that, the windows are slow. For instance, activating the address bar in my browser is not instant - I click and then almost a second later, the curser is ready. The same happens when selecting open programs from the task manager, or when using ALT+Tab to browse through the open windows.

All that was quick and instant before the Wayland update…

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My system has been running much better since the 6.0.2 update. I am still using X11 since the experience on Wayland was so terrible. Could be Wayland is improved since the update but I haven’t checked on my machine.

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Hi there! I’m on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma, and I’ve been running into pretty much the same deal as @knas described since I updated to Plasma 6. I’m using Hubstaff time tracking app for work, and on Wayland, this app was not functioning at all, it launches, but the UI is frozen, no buttons click, and no hover effects. So, I had to switch back to X11. On X11 Apps are buggy and slow, and I’m constantly restarting Plasmashell. Sometimes IntelliJ IDEA just freezes up. I’m hoping these issues get sorted out soon because I’m torn between rolling back to Plasma 5 or switching to a different DE. Thanks.

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I am wondering if anyone with the muscles to do anything about it, are reading through these discussions. I really like KDE and hope that things soon get better.

I have looked a bit into downgrading, but it seems quite unmanageable. Are you aware of any easy way to do it?