ksmserver stops answering on the SESSION_MANAGER socket

[Andrea Bocci]

Binary package hint: kdebase-workspace

After my KDE4 session has been open for a while (from some minutes to one hour, it's not clear the exact amount of time needed to trigger the bug) ksmserver stops answering to non-KDE applications.

I can see a simple example of this behaviour using vim.

ltrace hangs at:

  getenv("SESSION_MANAGER") = "local/katchoo:/tmp/.ICE-unix/833"...
  IceAddConnectionWatch(0x51f570, 0x82cfa8, 0, 0, 82) = 1
  SmcOpenConnection(0, 0, 1, 0, 15

strace hangs similarily:

  socket(PF_FILE, SOCK_STREAM, 0) = 6
  uname({sys="Linux", node="katchoo", ...}) = 0
  connect(6, {sa_family=AF_FILE, path="/tmp/.ICE-unix/8336"...}, 21) = 0
  fcntl(6, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0
  write(6, "\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 8) = 8
  read(6,

At this point I'm only able to start new applications from a terminal where the SESSION_MANAGER environment variable is not set.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/ksmserver
NonfreeKernelModules: openafs nvidia
Package: kdebase-workspace-bin 4:4.2.1a-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: kdebase-workspace
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-8-generic x86_64

[Andrea Bocci (fwyzard)]

Correction: KDE applications stop working, too.
I'm only able to open more konsoles if I have one already open.

[Andrea Bocci (fwyzard)]

After some more debugging (trying applications one by one) I found the culprit: pidgin

ksmserver works fine until I launch pidgin, then it gets stuck, with the symptoms described above.
Running "/usr/bin/env -u SESSION_MANAGER pidgin" instead of "pidgin" works fine and does not create problems in the system.

[Andrea Bocci (fwyzard)]

Close this bug, will file a new one against pidgin.