[jaunty] plasma crashes on start with SIGSEGV

[Jeremy Kerr]

Binary package hint: kdebase-plasma

When I log in via kdm, my KDE session does not have a panel or background.

This has started happening since today's upgrades. Versions are listed below.

If I try to manually run plasma from the shell, I get a lot of print output from plasma, including the following:

plasma(576) InterfaceItem::setEnabled: true
plasma(576) NetworkManagerApplet::showVpn: SHOWING
<unknown program name>(617)/ checkComposite: Plasma has an argb visual 0x9514a10 79691777
<unknown program name>(617)/ checkComposite: Plasma can use COMPOSITE for effects on 0x9514360
plasma(575): Communication problem with "plasma" , it probably crashed.
Error message was: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply" : " "Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)" "

KCrash: Application 'plasma' crashing...

Running under 'strace -e trace=process -f' gives:

plasma(19255) NetworkManagerApplet::showVpn: SHOWING
[pid 19255] --- SIGSEGV (Segmentation fault) @ 0 (0) ---
Process 19255 detached
[pid 19286] +++ killed by SIGSEGV (core dumped) +++

So looks like we have a SIGSEGV. Valgrind shows a breakage in libqtcore4:

plasma(3710) NetworkManagerApplet::showVpn: SHOWING
==3710==
==3710== Invalid read of size 4
==3710== at 0x5A6DEBA: QTimer::stop() (in /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.5.0)
==3710== by 0x408387F: (within /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_plasma.so)
==3710== by 0x40884AA: (within /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_plasma.so)
==3710== by 0x5A68CB7: QMetaObject::activate(QObject*, int, int, void**) (in /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.5.0)
==3710== by 0x5A69941: QMetaObject::activate(QObject*, QMetaObject const*, int, void**) (in /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.5.0)
==3710== by 0x41BD546: Plasma::View::sceneRectAboutToChange() (in /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3.0.0)
==3710== by 0x41BE7AE: (within /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3.0.0)
==3710== by 0x41BDCAA: Plasma::View::qt_metacall(QMetaObject::Call, int, void**) (in /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3.0.0)
==3710== by 0x4088469: (within /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_plasma.so)
==3710== by 0x5A68CB7: QMetaObject::activate(QObject*, int, int, void**) (in /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.5.0)
==3710== by 0x5A69941: QMetaObject::activate(QObject*, QMetaObject const*, int, void**) (in /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4.5.0)
==3710== by 0x413E126: Plasma::Applet::geometryChanged() (in /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3.0.0)
==3710== Address 0x8 is not stack'd, malloc'd or (recently) free'd
KCrash: Application 'plasma' crashing...

Package versions:
[jk@pingu ~]$ apt-cache policy kdebase-plasma libqtcore4
kdebase-plasma:
  Installed: 4:4.2.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4:4.2.1-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 4:4.2.1-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://mirror.internode.on.net jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
libqtcore4:
  Installed: 4.5.0-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4.5.0-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 4.5.0-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://mirror.internode.on.net jaunty/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Could you get a full backtrace with gdb please? (Probably would be best to install kdebase-workspace-dbg if it isn't installed already)

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

Running under gdb doesn't seem to catch the SEGV, perhaps because plasma forks and detaches from the parent process and/or kcrash is catching the signal?

(gdb) run
[ lines omitted ]
plasma(30010) NetworkManagerApplet::showVpn: SHOWING
KCrash: Application 'plasma' crashing...
plasma(29977): Communication problem with "plasma" , it probably crashed.
Error message was: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply" : " "Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)" "

Program exited with code 0377.
(gdb)
 <unknown program name>(30044)/ checkComposite: Plasma has an argb visual 0x915aa10 81788929
<unknown program name>(30044)/ checkComposite: Plasma can use COMPOSITE for effects on 0x915a360
QLayout: Attempting to add QLayout "" to QWidget "", which already has a layout
plasma(30046) Solid::Control::ManagerBasePrivate::loadBackend: Backend loaded: "NetworkManager 0.7"
[ output continues ]

I'll see if I can coerce gdb into attaching to the forked processes.

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

OK, got a backtrace:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb4c79710 (LWP 14855)]
0xb663ceba in QTimer::stop () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
(gdb) bt
#0 0xb663ceba in QTimer::stop () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#1 0xb7f9f880 in PanelView::updatePanelGeometry (this=0x989f510)
    at /build/buildd/kdebase-workspace-4.2.1a/plasma/shells/desktop/panelview.cpp:543
#2 0xb7fa44ab in PanelView::qt_metacall (this=0x989f510, _c=QMetaObject::InvokeMetaMethod, _id=16, _a=0xbfa109d8)
    at /build/buildd/kdebase-workspace-4.2.1a/obj-i486-linux-gnu/plasma/shells/desktop/panelview.moc:112
#3 0xb6637cb8 in QMetaObject::activate () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#4 0xb6638942 in QMetaObject::activate () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#5 0xb7e9b547 in Plasma::View::sceneRectAboutToChange () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#6 0xb7e9c7af in ?? () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#7 0xb7e9bcab in Plasma::View::qt_metacall () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#8 0xb7fa446a in PanelView::qt_metacall (this=0x989f510, _c=QMetaObject::InvokeMetaMethod, _id=43, _a=0xbfa10c18)
    at /build/buildd/kdebase-workspace-4.2.1a/obj-i486-linux-gnu/plasma/shells/desktop/panelview.moc:91
#9 0xb6637cb8 in QMetaObject::activate () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#10 0xb6638942 in QMetaObject::activate () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#11 0xb7e1c127 in Plasma::Applet::geometryChanged () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#12 0xb7e22930 in Plasma::Applet::itemChange () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#13 0xb7e3a2bf in Plasma::Containment::itemChange () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#14 0xb6f07e27 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4
#15 0xb6f08053 in QGraphicsItem::setPos () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4
#16 0xb7e38cca in ?? () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#17 0xb7e3a3c8 in Plasma::Containment::resizeEvent () from /usr/lib/libplasma.so.3
#18 0xb6f520ba in QGraphicsWidget::event () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4
#19 0xb68cef5c in QApplicationPrivate::notify_helper () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4
#20 0xb68d723e in QApplication::notify () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4
#21 0xb772471d in KApplication::notify () from /usr/lib/libkdeui.so.5
#22 0xb6621a4b in QCoreApplication::notifyInternal () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#23 0xb68da0de in QCoreApplication::sendEvent () from /usr/lib/libQtGui.so.4 ...

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

I think the network manager stuff is a red herring. I found this bug upstream though: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=186200

I think that if we could narrow down what widget was causing the bug, that'd be great. Maybe you could take a look at your plasma-appletsrc file, make a list of the plasmoids you were using, and then move the file to a different location and start adding the applets from the list until it crashes?

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

If I remove the plasma-appletsrc file, the crash still occurs - no widgets added.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Fix committed for KDE 4.2.2.

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

Will this fix be ported to jaunty? KDE is pretty much unusable without plasma (no system tray = no network manager = no network).

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

I actually haven't been able to find the revision that fixes this, and the person who fixed the bug didn't say which revision it was fixed in, so I dunno.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

There is a workaround here though: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185741#c3

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

The workaround mentioned in the linked KDE bug does not work, even after removing ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc, plasma still crashes.

This is due to the global plasma-appletsrc file /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/config/plasma-appletsrc, from the kubuntu-default-setting package. It contains a number of geometry settings that aren't suitable for this display, resulting in a crash.

Workaround is to remove all 'geometry=' lines from /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/config/plasma-appletsrc, and ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc if present.

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

> Workaround is to remove all 'geometry=' lines from /usr/share/kubuntu-
> default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/config/plasma-appletsrc, and
> ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc if present.

Nope, doesn't work either. will try messing around with geometry settings until something works...

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

ok, to work around this, I needed to find each geometry setting in my plasma-appletsrc, and manually clip each value to within the screen size.

Hopefully hotplugging a larger screen then removing it doesn't write any larger values to this file, otherwise it'll keep crashing...

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

> Hopefully hotplugging a larger screen then removing it doesn't write
> any larger values to this file, otherwise it'll keep crashing...

Unfortunately, after adding an external monitor then removing it, the geometry settings in plasma-appletsrc are changed back to a crashing state. This means that the plasma-appletsrc needs to be hand-edited after any decrease in screen resolution.

[Miloš Mandarić (mandzo18)]

I have also played with screen resolution before I encountered this bug.

[Egbert van der Wal (eggie)]

I have the same problem: plasma will not start at all.

I tried the above workaround, removing all mentions of geometry in /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/config/plasma-appletsrc and from ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc as well. This did not help. I also tried removing ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc alltogether but still no luck.

This indeed basically renders the (KDE) desktop useless so I consider this a very severe bug.

[Jeremy Wilkins (wjeremy)]

Also suffering from this. After upgrading a desktop to this kde 4.2.1 I can't get a desktop no matter what I try.

[Jeremy Wilkins (wjeremy)]

Correction. The size fix mentioned above does seem to get me a desktop. So as long as your desktop size doesn't change you're ok... Not promising.

[Jeremy Wilkins (wjeremy)]

I first noticed this bug when upgrading my home server. It seemed that all was well with my laptop upgrade which is my first test case, but my server changes resolution on desktop load (X still uses to largest resolution possible on the login screen though I don't want it to). This uncovered the bug and has made my server unusuable for now. I mistakenly upgraded another server in production (don't know why those sources were there still). I fixed it now with the workaround mentioned above.

[evilhomer (memberships-ahubbard)]

I'd also to confirm this. It started with updaes about a week ago. I removed all the geometry settings from the files above and removed ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc. Still no luck, I have the latest updates.

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

Is the status for this bug really fix commited/fix released? The fix may have been comitted/released upstream, but (from the above comments) it sounds like it's not going to be included in jaunty.

Given that the kde 4.2.2 release is scheduled for after the jaunty release, we won't see the fix in kubuntu until jaunty+1. Is this correct?

[Arne Nordmann (launchpad-norro)]

Work-around for me is starting KRandRTray first, then starting plasma manually. This works for me, since KRandRTray seems to set the resolution / geometry correct.

[Egbert van der Wal (eggie)]

I 'fixed' it now by deleting ~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc

Put the old plasma-appletsrc back in place so I have my desktop back with widgets etc. But still a strange thing that this could happen.

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

Running krandrtray doesn't work for me - just tried this, and plasma still crashes. I still need to edit the geometry settings manually.

I've shortened the process by keeping a 'clean' plasma-appletsrc file for each possible monitor configuration (3: work, home, and laptop-only modes). When the configuration changes, I just copy in the right file. Kinda hacky, but sucks less than not having plasma working.

[Miloš Mandarić (mandzo18)]

I have encounter this bug after changing resolution with krandrtray and now I have fixed with it.

[James (james-ellis-gmail)]

The relevant SVN commit is:
http://websvn.kde.org/?view=rev&revision=934863

via:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185736

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Thanks. Will look into this after alpha freeze.

[Giovanni Masucci (gio-grifis)]

Jonathan, kde 4.2.2 should make jaunty and give this fix for free...it should come out on the first of april...
anyway I just want to add that this bug makes the jaunty alpha 6 livecd unfit for an eeepc 901. Plasma always crashes on start. And I suspect that this may be a problem of all eeepc series and also of other netbooks that have 1024x600 resolution. If this is the case than we have something pretty big that should be marked critical as this means that the desktop will not work by default for most netbook users...

[xlnt01 (micke-xsol)]

I can confirm that plasma crashes on a fresh jaunty alpha6 (64bit) even on a Lenovo thinkpad x61 with a resolution of 1024x768. So no desktop...

[Miloš Mandarić (mandzo18)]

U Pet, 13. 03. 2009., u 14:18 +0000, Giovanni Masucci je napisao/la:
> Jonathan, kde 4.2.2 should make jaunty and give this fix for free...it should come out on the first of april...
> anyway I just want to add that this bug makes the jaunty alpha 6 livecd unfit for an eeepc 901. Plasma always crashes on start. And I suspect that this may be a problem of all eeepc series and also of other netbooks that have 1024x600 resolution. If this is the case than we have something pretty big that should be marked critical as this means that the desktop will not work by default for most netbook users...
>

No, this is not special netbook bug, it affects every computer. I have
an Asus laptop A6kt-q103 and the resolution is 1280x800

[Yannis Tsop (ogiannhs)]

Same problem here on desktop computer, quad-core intel cpu with nvidia card. This problem is not spesific to netbooks or notebooks.

[Eduardo Besembel (besembel)]

I confirm the problem with AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core + nvidia 6200 + mb asrock alive nf6g. solved after install with: alt + F2 jockey-kde the nvidia drivers.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package kdebase-workspace - 4:4.2.1a-0ubuntu6

---------------
kdebase-workspace (4:4.2.1a-0ubuntu6) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Add kubuntu_69_fix_plasma_startup_crash.diff to fix KDE bug 186324, can
    be unapplied in KDE 4.2.2 (LP: #338205)
  * Add kubuntu_70_fix_widescreen_kdm_theme.diff to fix KDE bug 169772, can
    be unapplied in KDE 4.3.x (LP: #259181)

 -- Jonathan Thomas <email address hidden> Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:23:26 -0400

[James (james-ellis-gmail)]

Thanks for the fix - is it applied to intrepid ? I don't see it coming through from the repos in an update.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

No, I haven't had time yet. :(
I'll try to get to it later today since it is somewhat of a serious issue.

[Egon Willighagen (egonw)]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Jonathan Thomas <email address hidden> wrote:
> No, I haven't had time yet. :(
> I'll try to get to it later today since it is somewhat of a serious issue.

Yes, the sooner the better... I very much like to test if indeed fixes
my problems, as expected.

Egon

--
Post-doc @ Uppsala University
http://chem-bla-ics.blogspot.com/

[James (james-ellis-gmail)]

Thanks Jonathon, looking forward to it.

Just out of interest, is it an ubuntu/kubuntu policy to fix bugs like this in the upcoming alpha release prior to the current stable release? Wouldn't it be better to ship the fix to Intrepid first with the expectation that people who are running Jaunty should expect flaws (that will be fixed in due course) ?

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

The kubuntu-experimental PPA is in about the same boat as Jaunty really, since it is, well, experimental. Once the packages are stable they'll be pushed to intrepid-backports.
Anyway, I uploaded the fix a few hours ago. It should be done building/be deployed in 45 mins or so.

[Arne Nordmann (launchpad-norro)]

Current version (4.2.1a-0ubuntu1) in kubuntu-experimental PPA fixed it for me. Thank you guys.

[Edmundo (eantoranz)]

Desktop is back. Thanks guys!

[James (james-ellis-gmail)]

I updated via the intrepid PPA mentioned above and nothing changed. The system booted up and "Ubuntu" went into Failsafe low graphics mode.
I hit the OK button on "Please wait, the display will restart in a minute" (weird dialogue ?) and got to a shell prompt.

I tried moving aside my plasma* files in share/config but no change. I changed the X driver from nvidia to nv and got a KDE session but of course KDE without nvidia driver doesn't understand multiple screens so I set the driver back to nvidia, with the nvidia twinview settings and rebooted, same problem.

Weirdly after that when I logged in at the shell, x suddenly started without me requesting it and I got a full KDE session back again, with nvidia and twinview settings working.

I know that nvidia is binary driver but this worked fine pre 4.2.1

specs:
Kubuntu 8.10
nvidia geforce 8400M
twinview enabled, using nvidia glx driver (both 173, 177 and 180 show the problem)
screen 1: 1280x800 laptop panel
screen 2: 1680x1050 DFP via HDMI port.

Is it possible the fix only addresses single screen setups ?

attached a snipped dump of the .xsession-errors on initial boot up:

at the moment I am not shutting down my PC as I can't afford an hour a day booting my computer.

[Jeremy Kerr (jk-ozlabs)]

After the updates to jaunty, all looks good here - no more crashing plasma.

Thanks for all the work, you guys rock.

[James (james-ellis-gmail)]

Just for completeness, my last comment above
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/+bug/338205/comments/40

I think is more related to this issue:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-180/+bug/354894

Plasma seems to be working ok now, apart from my USB mouse not working after resume (which is reported here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase-workspace/+bug/349221)

thanks
James

[Nick Sanders (nicksanders11)]

There is still something weird going on. I upgraded from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2 and the same thing happened as with the upgrade from 4.2.0 to 4.2.1 (Plasma wouldn't start until I had removed plasma-appletsrc and plasmarc)

I am using the nvidia binary driver (nvidia geforce 8400M with twinview)

Config files attached

[jc1985 (jc1985)]

I have Kubuntu jaunty installed since alpha5 and I've never hit this bug... until today!
kde splashscreen appears, and then when the plasma-desktop is supposed to appear: black screen
I can use Krunner to launch programs, but sill.. no panel, no widget, no wallpaper, just a black screen.
I've done my last jaunty upgrade before the crash yesterday, so after kdebase-workspace (4:4.2.2-0ubuntu1) was uploaded

with that fix :

   * Add kubuntu_72_remove_startkde_cruft.diff to remove test for a setting in
     kcmrandrrc that doesn't exist anymore. (KDE expects krandrtray to handle
     resolution setting on startup now...)

could it be the cause ?

I've tried to remove plasma-appletsrc and plasmarc and then restart the computer :
after the restart, the plasma-desktop appears for a few seconds, and then the black screen comes back.

I have a nvidia 5700 ultra graphic card btw.

[John Smeed (jrsmeed)]

I have a high resolution wide screen monitor, This seems to have delayed the onset of this bug. Installed the world clock applet two days ago and while trying it out plasma crashed, Had just updated the computer and the crash probably activated the updates. Can only use KDE by using the alt F2 shortcut. Not very convenient.
Please make the X modules depends as it would be nice to have a safe mode that works.
P.S. For the next version please concentrate on taking the Geek factor out of Unbutu. No new features, Just fix all the annoyances and bugs.

[jc1985 (jc1985)]

my fault, I had installed plasma-network-manager from JRidell ppa. the last version on it breaks plasma

[John Smeed (jrsmeed)]

I renamed the .KDE directory and rebooted the computer. Instant cure. Further investigation reveals that my problem was corrupt data in the Directory .kde/share/config
Can supply the corrupt data if needed. Will not use marble as I blame it for causing the crash.

[wirechief (wirechief)]

My laptop Lenovo R61e fell asleep, I could not awaken it. the 1/4 moon was blinking. I powered down. logged back
in and it said i had a crash report. thats about it.
Linux wirechief-laptop 2.6.30-020630rc2-generic #020630rc2 SMP Wed Apr 15 13:20:18 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

Host/Kernel/OS "wirechief-laptop" running Linux 2.6.30-020630rc2-generic x86_64 [ Ubuntu 9.04 ]
CPU Info (1) Intel Core2 Duo T7300 @ 4096 KB cache flags( sse sse2 nx lm pni vmx ) clocked at [ 2001.000 MHz ]
               (2) Intel Core2 Duo T7300 @ 4096 KB cache flags( sse sse2 nx lm pni vmx ) clocked at [ 800.000 MHz ]
Videocard Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller X.Org 1.6.0 [ 1280x800 ]
Network cards Broadcom NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
               Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection
Processes 155 | Uptime 11min | Memory 419.8/1977.7MB | HDD ATA HITACHI HTS54161 Size 120GB (7%used) | Client Shell | Infobash v2.67.1