Zsh launch with empty window

[reweb]

With i lanched booth konsole and yakuake, they popup but the cursors staiyng at top left and the windows stay empty.

I tried to remove the .zsh/ folder and all the .bash* related files in my user folder.

Has someone experimented that or someone does have a solution ?

Thanks.

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Mod edit:- Images removed.
Please avoid posting images when a brief description will suffice.

[Ben]

@reweb

Has someone experimented that or someone does have a solution ?

Not too likely, it would have been interesting if you had tried your own - did you try to type any command?

What happens if you do ls⏎ Enter

You can test the old config by using a command:
zsh -n ~/.zshrc-OLD

To see verbose output line-by-line:
zsh -xv

[Nachlese]

… some typo you have introduced into the config files?

Try with a new user?
and possibly reset your plasma session to defaults
… remove/move everything in ~/.config
and restore from what is in /etc/skel

(be wary of any e-mail related settings - Thunderbird and Firefox and Chrome/Chromium use separate directoiries - but Evolution has it’s settings in ~/.config as far as I know)

(do this from a TTY - the Plasma session of that user can’t be running when you do this)

[Ben]

@Nachlese

… some typo you have introduced into the config files?

Haha I thought this issue was solved… but confused, it WAS solved just a day or two back…

No ZSH prompt in konsole/yakuake

When konsole launches, it should launch your default shell… The first issue might be your zsh configuration files - if you create a new USER you should get a default shell - try that. So the first ones usually are .zshrc, xzprofile and so you could try running zsh from krunner with the -f option. zsh -f You can try switching to TTY and run echo $SHELL and set it with chsh… worth checking? First, make sure the shell isn’t running in your blank window 1. type echo Hello and hit Enter. 2. Ru…

So there’s a question now - two people had issues, so perhaps something common.

Anyway, OP - first go read that post and work through it.

[Nachlese]

@Ben

it WAS solved just a day or two back…

… it was?

I didn’t catch that.

Do you mind referring me and solving it for me?

I’m not affected by it - I only run KDE Plasma in a VM - with pretty much default settings.

Although I always create a Bash profile to use - zsh is of no benefit to me.

And I change the default shell to bash - but at this point I don’t even know anymore whether zsh was the default shell.

For me, it creates more problems than it solves …

[Ben]

@Nachlese

Do you mind referring me and solving it for me?

It was another user No ZSH prompt in konsole/yakuake - #2 by Ben

I never had this issue myself, but that user solved it by moving their local config…

It’s really no trouble - mine never failed without a very simple notification of where my typo was.

There is a default Manjaro zsh config, it’s quite nice - but I added extras… my ‘alias’ commands type out in full when I hit spacebar.

But fish is nicer… ctrl-R is magic.

[Nachlese]

Hmm - thank you!

It appears to be something the user did.

… of course

fish is no option for me - no benefit (I’m not scared of “syntax”)
it’s just not portable …

CTRL-R works in bash and zsh as well … - it is just recalling previous inputs …

[Ben]

@Nachlese

It appears to be something the user did.

But this is ANOTHER user, so it’s possibly some kind of plugin or other error - we didn’t really know from the first case, but it was fixed with refreshing the config.

Sadly, OP posted 7 hours ago and is likely or at work now, so time for patience.

[reweb]

Ok guys, I think I have the solution,

It’s related to the nordvpnd before nordvpn-bin 3.20.2-2.1.

Since I’ve updated it’s working again.

[Nachlese]

Hmm - so:
it was “fixed”
Perhaps the “ANOTHER user” doesn’t come into it?

Who knows?

We should not “decscend” into speculation …

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@reweb

t’s related to the nordvpnd before nordvpn-bin 3.20.2-2.1.

unbelievable …

to be clear:
I don’t believe it.

@reweb

It’s related to symlinks

could you elaborate a bit?

[reweb]

There is the package link

https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/commit/?h=nordvpn-bin

It’s related to libxml2 and symlinks

[Nachlese]

not good enough

I use Nordvpn myself.

Not on Manjaro, though - I’m currently using Mint.

[reweb]

Mint and Manjaro/Arch are very far away specially with aur packages

[Nachlese]

… mkay - and?

What is it that you are trying to establish here?

[reweb]

The dependencies are not managed the same way. I suggest you watch and try to understand pkgbuild file. You even have explanations about the temporary fix in the file.

I’m at work currently, I’ve got no time to explain in details right now.

[Nachlese]

@reweb

I suggest you watch and try to understand pkgbuild file.

not wanting to take a moral superior stance:

… so could have you

@reweb

I’m at work currently, I’ve got no time to explain in details right now.

I’m not - I could have employed just a few words to even tried to straighten this out …

@reweb

I’m at work currently, I’ve got no time to explain in details right now.

That sounds like:
you are too important to be even questioned …

[dmt]

@Nachlese

could you elaborate a bit?

Don’t know about the symlink part but this is the topmost comment:

Note from 3.20.2-2.1

A patch have been implemented due the absence of libxml2.so.2 after package upgrade to 2.14.2. This fix is not useful if:

You plan to keep your system update to a specific date until NordVPN officially uses the new library.

You are from a different distribution, which is a Arch-based one with other repositories, and libxml2 is not yet upgraded.

and in the PKGBUILD:

#-----------------------------------------------------------------
  # Bellow is a TEMPORARY fix for the missing libxml2.so.2 library
  # when upgrading the package to version 2.14.2
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------
  # If you wish, you can instead downgrade all your packages
  # within a specific date:
   ## 1. Edit your /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
   ## 2. Include the following line:
    ### Server = https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2025/04/29/$repo/os/$archive
   ## 3. Then you run:
    ### pacman -Syyuu
    ### (-uu is for downgrade)
  # done
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------
    tar -xvf libxml2-2.13.8-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst "usr/lib/libxml2.so.2.13.8"
    install -Dm 755 "usr/lib/libxml2.so.2.13.8" "${pkgdir}/usr/lib/nordvpn/libxml2.so.2"

[Nachlese]

nice try - I appreciate it it

Doesn’t solve anything, though.

Nordvpn works - just not for some guys here …

[soundofthunder]

@Nachlese

We should not “decscend” into speculation …

Perhaps something more than speculation.

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I’ll drop this here for consideration;

Something about missing libxml2.so.2

It is unlikely that libxml2 borked your system. The package was updated recently in the unstable branch to 2.14.2. Certain packages or AUR packages may still need the older version (2.13.8), Nordvpn.bin (AUR) required a workaround in the PKGBUILD to accommodate the missing file. The Arch packagers have released a libxml2-legacy package. That may be an option: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/libxml2-legacy/

As it seems like your NordVPN came from the AUR, this mention of libxml2 indeed seems related.

Updating that file likely solved your initial problem, and will do the same for other packages that might still depend on the older libxml2 version.

This is of course only conjecture, as I haven’t looked much beyond the brief mention, and I don’t use NordVPN.

• libxml2-legacy 2.13.8-1 (Arch Extra)

Regards.

[jrichard326]

The PKGBUILD was modified to account for the missing file. It doesn’t actually use this particular package. This package has been added to the regular Arch repositories