Task Manager stops displaying apps after some time

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1

For the last few days, running apps shown in the Plasma Task Manager disappear after some time. The apps are still there and running, they just aren’t shown in the task bar any more. This happens in both the Icons Only task manager and in the Icons and Text variant. The only way I have found to make the apps visible again is to right-click in the task manager, show alternatives, and select the other one. Then the apps are visible for a while before disappearing again. Swapping to the alternative shows them again. This happens several times a day, and is persistent across sessions, even after reboot.

My questions, to decide if I should submit a bug report (the team is so busy, I don’t want to waste their time)…

Has anyone else seen this?
Where would I look for setup data?
Is my profile broken? If so, how can I reset my profile without losing an awful lot of information and setup? (My profile is OLD and has been changed many, many times)

As always, I’m grateful for any hints on where to look or what to change. I’m reluctant to blow away my profile, but it may come to that.

======================= System Info ================================

Operating System: Manjaro Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.26.0
Qt Version: 6.11.1
Kernel Version: 6.18.33-1-MANJARO (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 48 × AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7960X 24-Cores
Memory: 192 GiB of RAM (188.2 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 6600
Manufacturer: ASUS

=======================================================================

Thanks,

Paul

2

Do you by any chance have multiple screens or multiple activities?

3

does the same thing happen if you create a new user and run apps on that profile?

4

Thanks for replying, Nate!

I don’t have activities, but I have 1 5k and 2 4k monitors, with 6 virtual desktops, so yes, multiple screens! See the screenshot..

KDE Desktop
KDE Desktop1920×926 221 KB

Have I hit a bug?

Paul

5

Thanks for taking the time to reply. The KDE community is fanrtastic!

I’m testing that now, with a newly created user. It may take some time to get an answer, as the time to disappearance seems to be over an hour, but I don’t really know.

P.

6

It’s going to be one of those days! I created a new user, but I can’t switch to that user - it always goes back to my desktop. I don’t want to logout, as I will break a bunch of work.

7

I don’t think having multiple monitors and virtual desktops is enough to really narrow it down, at the very least I have never experienced something like that.

Next time it happens, maybe try digging around / experimenting if there are other ways of getting the applications to show up again. For example, do they still show up in the application switcher (alt+tab)? What happens when you move the window between screens or virtual desktops, so they would normally move to a different panel’s task manager?

Or maybe the applications just get lost somewhere in your huge RAM (jk, just a little bit jealous)

8

yes, i should have mentioned that you will need to log out and log back in as that new user and then try running some of the problem apps from that account.

you may even need to “reinstall” them if they are not part of your base system but were only installed at the user level.

9

Previously, I could switch user and run both at the same time…that has stopped working as well.

10

That works for me. This is probably a local or distro misconfiguration.

11

I was reluctant to do this experiment, and it has been an unparalleled mess!

I couldn’t switch to the new profile from the “switch User” item, so I logged out and logged in as the new test user. That seemed OK, but as the test takes a while, I tried to switch to my original profile to keep working. It wouldn’t let me. Worried, I logged out of the new test user, and tried to log back in as me…disaster…it won’t let me…no matter which user I pick, it only logs in as the new test user.

My usual profile has a ton of personal setups, like Vorta profiles and SMB mounts of NAS boxen, all of which are keyed to my original profile and user ID. If I can’t login at all, I lose all of that stuff. Fortunately, I have many NAS backups, but I need to rebuild a bunch of mount points and SMB mounts just to allow Vorta to read the backups.

I’ll work through it all tomorrow, but this is quite distressing. It’s likely my fault for being too complex, but it makes me wonder if some comprehensive KDE profile management tools are needed.

Paul

12

Paul, I believe you may be running into an integration issue in Manjaro; see also SDDM Configuration: Why is ReuseSession set to "false" by default? - KDE Plasma - Manjaro Linux Forum and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434370.

If I’m right, the TL;DR is that reuseSession is set to false on Manjaro. This would be caused by either them shipping an old version of SDDM where it wasn’t defaulting to true yet, or them overriding its value to be false.

This can be fixed by opening the /etc/sddm.conf (or /etc/sddm.conf.d/kde_settings.conf file, if you have that), and removing reuseSession=false from it if it exists; otherwise, add reuseSession=true to it.

Ideally Manjaro would resolve this issue themselves, or switch to plasma-login-manager, where the issue is not possible.

13

Thanks again, Nate.

Manjaro has sddm.conf.d, and the kde_settings.conf file is as follows…

[Autologin]
Relogin=false
Session=plasma.desktop
User=

[General]
HaltCommand=/usr/bin/systemctl poweroff
RebootCommand=/usr/bin/systemctl reboot

[Theme]
Current=breeze
CursorTheme=breeze_cursors

[Users]
MaximumUid=60513
MinimumUid=1000

As you can see, ReuseSession isn’t present at all. I guess the default is false if the flag is not present?

Does the system care which section of that file the ReuseSession flag appears in?

P.

14

On my manjaro system there also exists a /etc/sddm.conf and I’d wager this one is being loaded aswell.

Anyway, ReuseSession=false is under the [Users] section in there.

15

Ahhh…what price standardization???

On mine, /etc/sddm.conf exists but is zero length. The one in /etc/sddm.conf.d has the content above. I’ll add ReuseSession=true to the User section.

Is there any way to make SDDM reread that setup without logging out? That’s now a hazardous activity until I get this fixed!

I’m wondering if I can sign up to test the revamped Plasma Login Manager.

16

unfortunately, i don’t thing sddm.conf anything will be accessed unless you at least logout, if not reboot.

17

Well…that was not fun!

I added a new user, but even after a reboot, I can’t log in as that user at all…the system logs me in as my normal user. I think Manjaro is broken.

As an experiment, I switched to the Plasma Login Manager, and that logged me in, but without any wallpaper or widgets (like task managers or a launcher) at all - just blank screens with some autostart programs like dolphin and vorta running. Fortunately, Dolphin let me start a terminal, and I put sddm and sddm-kcm back, and after a reboot, I am back where I started!

I still haven’t been able to test if the original task manager issue I started this thread about happens with another user.

I’m contemplating giving up on Manjaro at this point, but I really like it as a distro. :woozy_face:

18

OK - it took a week to get it done, but I can confirm that the original issue is no longer happening.

It took a long time, because I had to delete my KDE profile and start again from scratch. Building it back was slow and painful

Once again, I feel the need for a centralized profile management tool. I have no idea what that might look like.

The other issue about being unable to switch users is still there, and is unique to my installation of Manjaro. I have another machine (a Framework Laptop 16) also running Manjaro, and it switches users just fine.

Anyway - I’m grateful (as always) to everyone who chimed in. KDE people rock!