KDE Plasma Black screen on boot

My system boots, Yakuake, the dropdown Terminal is loaded. manjaro Hello Is loaded. But, I dont see my taskbar (positioned to the left) or the wallpaper. Screen remains black. I can see the cursor.

I can then use plasmashell --replace in the yakuake dropdown to start plasma again. Ususally, the first attempt leads to crashed plama, and after 2 or 3 tries, plasma starts.

I do not have the calender. I executed:

grep Version ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.eventcalendar/metadata.desktop /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.eventcalendar/metadata.desktop

Answer :

grep: /home/monsoon_east/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.eventcalendar/metadata.desktop: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
grep: /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.eventcalendar/metadata.desktop: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

Here is my uname -a

Linux planetGlass 5.10.19-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Feb 26 11:38:34 UTC 2021 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Here is my graphics hardware :

12: PCI 100.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)             
  [Created at pci.386]
  Unique ID: VCu0.p+Z1JA96Pa3
  Parent ID: vSkL.xta5pj6a3m6
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:01:00.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "nVidia GK107M [GeForce GTX 660M]"
  Vendor: pci 0x10de "nVidia Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x0fd4 "GK107M [GeForce GTX 660M]"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1558 "CLEVO/KAPOK Computer"
  SubDevice: pci 0x3700 
  Revision: 0xff
  Memory Range: 0xf6000000-0xf6ffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xe0000000-0xefffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xf0000000-0xf1ffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xe000-0xe07f (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xf7000000-0xf707ffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 16 (31 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v000010DEd00000FD4sv00001558sd00003700bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: nouveau is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nouveau"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: nvidia_drm is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia_drm"
  Driver Info #2:
    Driver Status: nvidia is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #10 (PCI bridge)

21: PCI 02.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
  [Created at pci.386]
  Unique ID: _Znp.fH_EJiEe_JC
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:02.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Device Name: "Onboard IGD"
  Model: "Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x0166 "3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1558 "CLEVO/KAPOK Computer"
  SubDevice: pci 0x3700 
  Revision: 0x09
  Driver: "i915"
  Driver Modules: "i915"
  Memory Range: 0xf7400000-0xf77fffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xf000-0xf03f (rw)
  Memory Range: 0x000c0000-0x000dffff (rw,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 35 (109338 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d00000166sv00001558sd00003700bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: i915 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe i915"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

Primary display adapter: #12

I run : sudo systemctl --failed

Output :

[sudo] Passwort für monsoon_east: 
  UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION
0 loaded units listed.

What can be done ?

This/similar happens to me on about every second system start.

On first display I only have the background image without taskbar. On second display I have only one of my autostart programs showing (KeePassXC) and the background image. If I do a cold restart the issue persists. It only goes away when doing a reboot in terminal. For then appearing on 2nd next system start probably again.

Try to set different splash… Or it continues after splash? Then consider resintalling plasma by removing package and install again, settings should last. If it lasts it’s settings. If you changed a settings file manually, you have a typo.

Confirming : I also notice, that on the second or thrid reboot (random occurrence) - regardless if graceful exit or not, regardless even if i reinstall every package on pacman and do fsck with a live medium - the issue goes away for once. Then the cycle starts again.

That is :

  1. No issue —> reboot.
  2. issue appears —> reboot
  3. either in this reboot or in the next reboot issue will go away
  4. Cycle repeats.
1 Like

I have had similar issues. Reset your SDDM theme to Breath, the Manjaro default. Restart X or reboot. For some silly reason this fixed my issues. I must have corrupted the Breeze theme. After many Theme related issues, I no longer use global themes in KDE.

If this is the solution shouldn’t it be reported somewhere?
Can anyone confirm this working?

Do you mean only the login screen? If I type sddm in start menu this is what it shows me. And there I did not change anything. It’s set to standard Breeze.

Oh and I do use autologon so that could be a thing, too. And I start with a empty session.

Update: I’ve set the global design to Breath2 (not sure what was before) and I guess more important I changed the background image on my main display to a standard image which was before a daily image from National Geographics. That seems to have fixed it. Third system start with (nearly) no issue (hat a failure message once shown for a split second but then booted into DE).

Reset theme.

Installed linux 5.11, and 5.4 (previously was on 5.10 and 5.9)

Removed nvidia drivers, and bumblebee, reinstalled intel drivers

Does not solve my issue.