KDE users who prefer stability and are not as interested in “updating for the sake of updating”, just know that 5.23.3 may appear as a stable “point” release, due to the .3 in the version name; however, it introduces new bugs and still contains regressions from recent KDE releases.
BEGIN rant
The latest KDE iteration has been a train wreck of a disappointment. I am slowly losing my confidence in their developers.
They continue to introduce regressions without any clear rationale for their changes. It’s gotten so bad that now, on their own admission, they are unsure where some of these regressions have been introduced in their code, as they concede they might need to do blanket commit reversals from recent-to-previous versions…
Crippling unexplained slowdowns when using native “K” applications, such as Dolphin, Ark, KRename, etc.
Hanging processes with an unresponsive desktop (that can take minutes and longer to resolve on their own) when doing basic things like copying and moving files from one location to another.
Erratic notifications that either hang indefinitely or spit out dubious messages about “Application unexpectedly terminated” even though the process completely successfully.
The fact that only 75% had a smooth update experience places this latest Stable Update (of which I blame much of it on KDE) as one of the more recent flops. It’s not a jab at Manjaro (as Arch Linux users will experience the same thing.) I place the blame upstream.
Everything I described in my “flagged” post was introduced or made worse after applying the latest Stable Update.
The reason I don’t have solutions for them yet is because there are ongoing, unresolved bug reports (and other forum threads).
It should serve as a cautionary warning to KDE users before jumping into this update.
KDE 5.23.3 promised many fixes and reversals of recent regressions, when in fact I experienced the opposite: such that I cannot comfortably depend on it for daily use or important tasks.
That’s what I assumed these discussions are for? Otherwise, user frustrations will never reach others in same boat.
One of the relevant threads has been cross referenced in my post with regards to Dolphin’s context menu causing desktop hangs/freezes with native “K” applications.
The above applies to an Intel GPU laptop and a Nvidia GPU desktop.
I’ll have to disagree with you there. On my other system running the lastest update I encountered no issues. I’ll assume that’s to do with using integrated graphics instead of nvidia’s proprietary driver. I’ll agree there are issues but we should focus on providing feedback or workarounds so that solutions can be reached. “Don’t use KDE because its got regressions” will just delay progress towards the solution. If you had problems on both your systems and really can’t stand KDE then provide feedback on the specific issues, not just “beware regressions” whenever there’s an update. You can also switch between DE’s really easily. I think the simple solution to your issue is don’t main plasma if it’s causing you that much harm. No need to get aggressive on KDE devs.
During a “move” operation of which I was moving some files from one directory to another, the entire desktop screeched to a sluggish pace and intermittently “froze”. The notifications were crawling (for an operation that would normally take a few seconds or less.)
I had to walk away from my computer and cross my fingers, in hopes that it would eventually finish; and that my files would be safe. Luckily, it finished after nearly an hour later! (Even though the notifications blurted out “terminated” which gave me a scare.)
While this mimics the latest spat with Dolphin/Ark (both native KDE applications), aborting or cancelling the compression task will result in a “corrupt” archive file. At least the original files remain safely intact. However, aborting in the middle of a file move operation can put the file’s integrity at jeopardy, especially when KDE’s tray spits out inaccurate information and the entire desktop is hanging.
These are not file-system, hardware, or kernel issues. I could not reproduce it with the terminal. I can reproduce it with Dolphin. My initial investigation puts the blame on some sort of lower-level KDE collision in regards to notifications prior to the task completing.
I have yet to file a bug report because there are currently other ongoing issues that overlap with this one. (Besides, it takes a lot of energy to go back and forth in bug reports.)
It’s a cautionary warning, as bugs are still being hashed out.
Look at my posts in these forums. I don’t simply say “ditch KDE!” and run away. In fact, through discussions and troubleshooting with others, we find solutions and/or provide feedback via upstream bug reports. (I use a different name on the bugzilla.)
But when it comes to corrupting / losing data, it’s more urgent than a glitch in the Plasma theme or animations not working properly.
Hi, I don’t percieve ANY of your problems, quite the opposite, so your rant and blaming is better moved somewhere else more appropriate? There can be many things associated with that 75%, GNOME 41 isn’t the best either, nvidia dropping Kepler support either, as many users got a blank screen before @philm’s editing, etc. You are following unstable and testing as far as I know, those issues regarding all 3 should have been known to you already, so such a ranting is not justified by you imo.
As I already said in other posts where users said Plasma 5.23.x was full of bugs and not working, I have absolutely no issue in my daily driving KDE, gaming on it, using Nvidia, with dual monitors, things like that… I have yet to see issues reproducible on my side.
I haven’t experienced any of these mysterious issues, and I have an NVIDIA GPU. I’m also still using X11, so there’s that. I’d rather wait for Wayland and enjoy using my desktop than deal with all this bother.
The only thing that happened to me was that I needed to clear my cache after updating, since the update seemed to break my themes (I’d suggest this cache-clearing step to be automatic part of the upgrade, since I doubt most people even know they have to do it, judging by all the posts).
I also use the KDE desktop environment, but on an AMD graphics card for many years now with absolutely no problems. I have never cleared the KDE cache after a major KDE Plasma update, but I have never had any problems with it.
First of all: I get the frustration and understand both sides.
The underlying problem I see is that KDE Devs mostly sadly don’t have the setup (like multi monitor with high refreshrate with highdpi and the same layout).
With Plasma 5.22.90 there is a regression with the “Kickoff” menu.
When having a second Kickoff Applet either on the same or another panel (e.g. on a second screen), only the last added kickoff has a working search functionality.
This issue has been reported on 2021-09-29 (nearly two months ago).
I am someone who actively uses three Kickoff menus - which resulted in a lot of frustration when I noticed that I could only search things on my third monitor.
In my personal opinion thats a regression which obviously breaks basic functionality, yet the deemed it “minor” importance.
Then there are the “bugs”, which are the result of people not cleaning their cache.
I understand that this is a Distro which is geared towards people who know how to handle problems - however it’s in my opinion not a great experience to have manually clean a hidden folder when updating. Cleaning the KDE Cache should be done automatically by the Update Process itself. Not a great user experience for normal users.
The stable release from 2021-11-19 has not been “stable” in the sense of what the stable release so far has been.
Looking only at the numbers:
2021-11-19 (365 Votes)
No Issues: 75%
Some sort of Issue: 25%
2021-10-16 (377 Votes)
No Issues: 93%
Some sort of Issue: 7%
The poll is kinda irrelevant as we don’t have numbers based on DE, or the reason why they clicked they have an issue (people with AUR issues click this button usually, I don’t read Stable announcements a lot these day though), and what they consider an issue (you have issue with Nvidia, when everything is clear what step you should do to prevent ‘issue’ because Nvidia dropped your card in latest drivers, but then you click the button to say you have an issue), things like that…
I’m running Plasma Wayland session and have only seen improvements after the latest update. I have seen none of the issues presented in the Original Post. And as far as I know, Plasma X11 is in maintenance mode, as they are focusing on the future (wayland). That’s at least my understanding/conclusion to the last couple of Plasma releases.
However, if something as basic as an update of the proprietary NVIDIA driver removes support of Kepler based GPUs, then why does this package update even get displayed for users who are running this kind of card.
I bet that there is a good chunk of people running these cards, only seeing a big update in the package manager and just installing it, only to have a black screen after reboot.
Should the user have looked / researched before updating? Yes, but you can’t expect everyone looking in the forum seeing that they will have issues beforehand.
Point is the poll is irrelevant, regarding why it has been brought up here. What if 25% of people have issue with GNOME, or Nvidia, how is it relevant to the KDE rant here?
I have encountered all of these issues and completely agree with your suggestion for a better update experience. However, I don’t really want to delete the cache since I can reach the desktop, even if by really inconvenient means (restarting plasmashell a bunch and waiting a bit). I also don’t think clearing the cache in all cases will help since it appears that only works in specific cases where the cache was the culprit. This lastest update doesnt seem to fall into that category. Too many users with different circumstances are reporting success.
This is more likely an issue caused by NVIDIA which KDE is handling poorly/not at all. I was able to test that this latest NVIDIA driver update did fix an issue which prevented some applications like the Alacritty terminal (uses GPU for OpenGL rendering) from launching on wayland while on my buggy plasma desktop. The proprietary driver is having growing pains much worse than KDE IMO.
If you are using proprietary drivers with plasmawayland everything generic or running in XWayland works fine, while native apps sort of ‘work’ or lack something necessary to function, which has the chance of terminating it or making the rest of the desktop more or less unusable for daily use when you depend on such software (IFF on NVIDIA).
With all that said, my laptop on ancient intel integrated graphics has had no issues with plasma desktop, which further indicates to me clearing the cache is irrelevant to problems I experienced in this update. I somehow lost a package from KDE a few updates ago on that device, but everything else has been fine and the other updates have been smooth.
I agree Kickoff and other bugs are really annoying and from my perspective, and yours, not having a stable desktop environment is just bad. It is, however, reasonable to mark that issue as a minor inconvenience. I rebound my shortcuts to use each kickoff instead of shortcutting generically. It’s a simple workaround and it’s all within system settings. There are far more pressing issues, like not launching the desktop, no longer detecting monitor info, not launching applications, multi-monitor woes, and fixes to critical issues for plasma or its apps. Just because your priorities are different than KDE devs doesnt mean theirs are wrong.
In my experience, I do not have a big problem with the latest stable version of KDE with X11 in my full AMD system (AMD CPU and AMD GPU). I see about 98% no issue, 2% bugs are not important to me. There are other bugs that I do not notice and never touch. But I have no interest in many exaggerated desktop effects which I have disabled.
KDE Wayland lacks a function to set primary desktop in multiple monitors. I am waiting for KDE Wayland supporting multiple monitors.
I no longer use Nvidia GPU, because I feel Linux supports Nvidia badly when Nvidia is always closed source.
I legitimately have afterimage for multiple minutes, after reading your wall of text. Please for the sake of people’s eyes, format your text properly so it is readable. Make paragraphs, have empty lines.
KDE users who prefer stability and are not as interested in “updating for the sake of updating”, just know that 5.23.3 may appear as a stable “point” release, due to the .3 in the version name; however, it introduces new bugs and still contains regressions from recent KDE releases.
Crippling unexplained slowdowns when using native “K” applications, such as Dolphin, Ark, KRename, etc.
. OP didn’t clarify it but it can only be this case.