Windows content hangs & jitters

Sometimes various windows content (mostly Firefox windows but others too though I don’t recall which others there where) on my Manjaro KDE laptop kind of hangs and jumps around between various past states. Moving / resizing those windows makes them show their current content again, but as soon as they’re left still they again only display their last few states from when it was still moved / resized.

The only workaround I’ve found is closing and reopening the window. I haven’t identified a trigger that causes a window to adapt this behavior.

Has anybody else experienced something like this and maybe knows how to fix it? Or is there anybody with knowledge of KDE or it’s for this error description relevant components who can tell me how to debug this problem?

post system info:
inxi -Faz
mhwd -l -li
use formatting, click this icon in editor: </>

inxi -Faz
System:
  Kernel: 5.15.74-3-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/@/boot/vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64
    root=UUID=eb7da11c-9772-44c7-b055-7a37b4f9a585 rw rootflags=subvol=@
    cryptdevice=UUID=cc88b27d-99f2-4e5c-8878-69a7b4d500c1:luks-cc88b27d-99f2-4e5c-8878-69a7b4d500c1
    root=/dev/mapper/luks-cc88b27d-99f2-4e5c-8878-69a7b4d500c1 apparmor=1
    security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3
    resume=UUID=eb7da11c-9772-44c7-b055-7a37b4f9a585 resume_offset=90863099
  Console: pty pts/4 wm: kwin_x11 DM: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux
    base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: XPS 15 7590 v: N/A serial: <filter>
    Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter>
  Mobo: Dell model: 018W12 v: A06 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.15.0
    date: 12/09/2021
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 68.6 Wh (92.8%) condition: 73.9/97.0 Wh (76.2%)
    volts: 13.0 min: 11.4 model: SMP DELL GPM0365 type: Li-ion serial: <filter>
    status: charging
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i7-9750H socket: BGA1440 (U3E1) note: check
    bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Coffee Lake gen: core 9 level: v3 note: check
    built: 2018 process: Intel 14nm family: 6 model-id: 0x9E (158)
    stepping: 0xA (10) microcode: 0xF0
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 6 tpc: 2 threads: 12 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 384 KiB desc: d-6x32 KiB; i-6x32 KiB L2: 1.5 MiB desc: 6x256 KiB
    L3: 12 MiB desc: 1x12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 901 high: 905 min/max: 800/4500 base/boost: 3366/4500
    scaling: driver: intel_pstate governor: powersave volts: 1.0 V
    ext-clock: 100 MHz cores: 1: 900 2: 900 3: 902 4: 900 5: 905 6: 903
    7: 902 8: 901 9: 902 10: 900 11: 900 12: 900 bogomips: 62431
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT
    vulnerable
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: mmio_stale_data mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: retbleed mitigation: IBRS
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl and seccomp
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: IBRS, IBPB: conditional, RSB filling,
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] vendor: Dell
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9.5 process: Intel 14nm built: 2016-20
    ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,DP-2,DP-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0
    chip-ID: 8086:3e9b class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: NVIDIA TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q] vendor: Dell
    driver: nvidia v: 520.56.06 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm non-free: 515.xx+
    status: current (as of 2022-10) arch: Turing code: TUxxx
    process: TSMC 12nm built: 2018-22 pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16
    link-max: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1f91
    class-ID: 0302
  Device-3: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-12:4 chip-ID: 0c45:6d13 class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.4 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.3
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: modesetting,nvidia
    unloaded: nouveau alternate: fbdev,nv,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
    display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22")
    s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: Sharp 0x14ba built: 2019 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60
    dpi: 142 gamma: 1.2 size: 344x194mm (13.54x7.64") diag: 395mm (15.5")
    ratio: 16:9 modes: 1920x1080
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa
    22.1.7 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl bus-ID: 00:1f.3
    chip-ID: 8086:a348 class-ID: 0403
  Sound API: ALSA v: k5.15.74-3-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.21 running: no
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.58 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 vendor: Rivet Networks Killer™
    driver: iwlwifi v: kernel pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 3b:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2723 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp59s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 1-4:2 chip-ID: 8087:0029 class-ID: e001
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
    rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 771.41 GiB (82.8%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Western Digital
    model: WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0 size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B
    logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter>
    rev: 211210WD temp: 40.9 C scheme: GPT
  SMART: yes health: PASSED on: 57d 12h cycles: 584 read-units: 19,322,364
    [9.89 TB] written-units: 94,918,466 [48.5 TB]
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 931.21 GiB size: 931.21 GiB (100.00%) used: 771.35 GiB
    (82.8%) fs: btrfs block-size: 4096 B dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0
    mapped: luks-cc88b27d-99f2-4e5c-8878-69a7b4d500c1
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 58 MiB
    (19.4%) fs: vfat block-size: 512 B dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
  ID-3: /home raw-size: 931.21 GiB size: 931.21 GiB (100.00%) used: 771.35
    GiB (82.8%) fs: btrfs block-size: 4096 B dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0
    mapped: luks-cc88b27d-99f2-4e5c-8878-69a7b4d500c1
  ID-4: /var/log raw-size: 931.21 GiB size: 931.21 GiB (100.00%) used: 771.35
    GiB (82.8%) fs: btrfs block-size: 4096 B dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0
    mapped: luks-cc88b27d-99f2-4e5c-8878-69a7b4d500c1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 64 GiB used: 3.74 GiB (5.9%) priority: -2
    file: /.swap/swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 75.0 C pch: 65.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 4890 fan-2: 4896
Info:
  Processes: 503 Uptime: 2d 7h 57m wakeups: 57170 Memory: 62.45 GiB used: 14.66
  GiB (23.5%) Init: systemd v: 251 default: graphical tool: systemctl
  Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 clang: 14.0.6 Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 2083
  libs: 513 tools: pamac pm: flatpak pkgs: 0 Shell: Bash (su) v: 5.1.16
  running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.22
mhwd -l -li                                                                                    ✔ 
> Installed PCI configs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           video-linux            2018.05.04                true            PCI
     video-modesetting            2020.01.13                true            PCI
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-prime            2021.11.04               false            PCI


Warning: No installed USB configs!
> 0000:01:00.0 (0302:10de:1f91) Display controller nVidia Corporation:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-prime            2021.11.04               false            PCI
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-470xx-prime            2021.11.04               false            PCI
          video-nvidia            2021.11.04               false            PCI
    video-nvidia-470xx            2021.11.04               false            PCI
           video-linux            2018.05.04                true            PCI


> 0000:00:02.0 (0300:8086:3e9b) Display controller Intel Corporation:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-prime            2021.11.04               false            PCI
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-470xx-prime            2021.11.04               false            PCI
           video-linux            2018.05.04                true            PCI
     video-modesetting            2020.01.13                true            PCI
            video-vesa            2017.03.12                true            PCI

did you try different kernels? in your case, since you have a newer hardware, install the 6.0 kernel - not the rc one - from system settings/kernel, reboot… it should automatically boot with it…
if you cant boot for what ever reason with the 6 kernel, just select the 5.15 in grub menu …

okey. I switched to kernel 6.0.2-2 and rebooted. Works fine, and I haven’t seen the issue so far, though it wasn’t super frequent before either. So I’ll have to use the system for a few hours to see if that really fixed it.

I’ll update this post later.

UPDATE: I just had a very similar problem with a terminal (=“konsole”) window, it jittered around though the jittering states seemed to all be coming from the last few seconds, unlike before where the jittering states remained the same old states until the window was moved or resized.

we will need logs, so open this file:
kate /etc/environment
and put there this line:
QT_LOGGING_RULES='*=false'
save the file
this will disable those qt/kwin logs, so that the logs are more readable

reboot and test, and when it happens again provide logs:
journalctl -b0 -p5 --no-pager

Today around ~16:00 I’ve observed a similar issue, I was moving the eclipse startup splash window while it got closed which resulted in it’s rendering getting “stuck” on all my virtual displays, never closing, even after closing eclipse.
I’ve restarted the plasmashell @ 17:05, but that didn’t get rid of that stuck splash screen.

It can’t be interacted with anymore, I can put other windows over it but if I minimize everything it hovers over the desktop but all mouse events get handled by the desktop behind it.

The logs you’ve asked for don’t seem to contain anything related:

Nov 13 15:31:47 host systemd-xdg-autostart-generator[1336822]: /home/user/.config/autostart/org.moson.matray.desktop: not generating unit, error parsing Exec= line: No such file or directory
Nov 13 15:31:47 host systemd[1345]: /run/user/1000/systemd/generator.late/app-xbindkeys@autostart.service:18: WorkingDirectory= path is not absolute, ignoring: 
Nov 13 15:42:45 host firefox[8864]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 13 15:42:47 host kernel: audit: type=1334 audit(1668350567.211:328): prog-id=33 op=LOAD
Nov 13 15:42:47 host kernel: audit: type=1334 audit(1668350567.211:329): prog-id=34 op=LOAD
Nov 13 15:42:47 host kernel: audit: type=1334 audit(1668350567.211:330): prog-id=35 op=LOAD
Nov 13 15:42:47 host kernel: audit: type=1130 audit(1668350567.308:331): pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=unconfined msg='unit=systemd-hostnamed comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'
Nov 13 15:42:58 host firefox[8864]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 13 15:43:11 host firefox[8864]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 13 15:43:24 host firefox[8864]: g_object_ref: assertion 'G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Nov 13 15:43:55 host kernel: audit: type=1131 audit(1668350635.665:332): pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj=unconfined msg='unit=systemd-hostnamed comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'
Nov 13 15:43:55 host kernel: audit: type=1334 audit(1668350635.761:333): prog-id=0 op=UNLOAD
Nov 13 15:43:55 host kernel: audit: type=1334 audit(1668350635.761:334): prog-id=0 op=UNLOAD
Nov 13 15:43:55 host kernel: audit: type=1334 audit(1668350635.761:335): prog-id=0 op=UNLOAD
Nov 13 15:44:30 host pamac-tray-plas[1772]: updates_checker.vala:71: check updates
Nov 13 15:44:36 host pamac-tray-plas[1772]: updates_checker.vala:101: 2 updates found
Nov 13 16:44:30 host pamac-tray-plas[1772]: updates_checker.vala:71: check updates
Nov 13 16:44:36 host pamac-tray-plas[1772]: updates_checker.vala:101: 2 updates found
Nov 13 17:05:30 host systemd[1345]: plasma-plasmashell.service: Consumed 52min 19.111s CPU time.

in these logs, theres nothing… the last log is from 17:05:


so have no idea what it could be…
and everything was working fine the last 10 days until this happened?

I had 2 or 3 freezes, where the mouse was still moveable but nothing reacted to mouse or keyboard. I was able to switch to TTY2 and back once, but afterwards not even that worked anymore. The system was still running, ssh-server worked and accepted connections.

Do you have any ideas on how I could get rid of this without rebooting?
image

and these issues happened only with this eclipse?
you can open ksysguard and kill it from there… or log out and log in

no, it’s not just eclipse. but it happens very rarely.

logging out + in will close all my open windows, which is something I don’t like to do too often, and especially not right now while I have an ongoing long running gui based task now.

Sadly, now that other issue I was talking about yesterday hit again, the screen froze, only the mouse pointer still moves. clicking doesn’t do anything. SSH still works, but the desktop is toast.

Do you have any ideas how to fix this? Years ago it always helped to kill and restart plasmashell, but that trick doesn’t help me now sadly.

looking at journalctrl -e via ssh doesn’t give me anything. The freeze happened somewhere in between me opening kate:

ov 14 14:11:06 xps15-7590 rtkit-daemon[1440]: Supervising 14 threads of 11 processes of 1 users.
Nov 14 14:11:40 xps15-7590 rtkit-daemon[1440]: Supervising 14 threads of 11 processes of 1 users.
Nov 14 14:11:40 xps15-7590 rtkit-daemon[1440]: Supervising 14 threads of 11 processes of 1 users.
Nov 14 14:11:54 xps15-7590 systemd[1345]: Started Kate - Advanced Text Editor.
Nov 14 14:11:55 xps15-7590 systemd[1345]: Started Kate - Advanced Text Editor.
Nov 14 14:12:40 xps15-7590 rtkit-daemon[1440]: Supervising 14 threads of 11 processes of 1 users.
Nov 14 14:12:40 xps15-7590 rtkit-daemon[1440]: Supervising 14 threads of 11 processes of 1 users.

and me trying if using the fn keys to increase / decrease sound volume & screen brighthness still work (which they do):

Nov 14 14:13:30 xps15-7590 kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Could not resolve symbol [\_SB.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP.BRT6.LCD], AE_NOT_FOUND (20220331/psargs-330)
Nov 14 14:13:30 xps15-7590 kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP.BRT6 due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20220331/psparse-529)
Nov 14 14:13:30 xps15-7590 kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \EV5 due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20220331/psparse-529)
Nov 14 14:13:30 xps15-7590 kernel: ACPI Error: Aborting method \SMEE due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20220331/psparse-529)

aha!! I found a very helpful hint in a very old stackoverflow question:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/481329/can-i-restart-the-kde-plasma-desktop-without-logging-out

I was able to recover my GUI by running:

DISPLAY=:0 kwin_x11 --replace

since there are no logs and it happens randomly its hard to troubleshoot…
provide all logs from this:
journalctl -b0 -p4 --no-pager

At that moment where that freeze which was fixed by restarting kwin_x11 happened (~ around 14:13 today) the command you suggest journalctl -b0 -p4 --no-pager gives less than what I posted at 14:35 today.

Do you want me to post a pastebin of the whole log, which starts at Nov 12 19:44:20, which apparently was the last time I rebooted my laptop?

Restarting kwin_x11 by the way also got rid of that hung eclipse flash screen.

no, that would be a lot of logs…
do you use nvidia?

Try this:

echo "export KWIN_USE_BUFFER_AGE=0" >> ~/.bash_profile

and relogin

Today I had another complete desktop hang. I was able to get the windows responsive to mouse actions again by restarting kwin_x11 but the plasma-panels didn’t work anymore and nothing reacted to keyboard input. I’ve additionally restarted plasmashell, but that didn’t help either.

Didn’t have too much time to debug, therefore I just rebooted the machine.

yes

ok.

and are you using nvidia via the prime run command, or you switch to nvidia mode only?

i use prime-run to start gpu intensive tasks like games, though I don’t do that often, something like once a month? Though probably with several months in between usages but if I use it then repeatably for days / weeks on end. I did install unigine-superposition about a week ago to see if prime-run is still working as it did: it does.

What else is there to restart when KDE has problems?

I now have quite frequent hangs of the dekstop and my panels (like once every 2 days) that can’t be fixed by restarting kwin_x11 or plasmashell.