Kickoff doesn't Respond, KDE Applications don't Open

[Jacob M. Carson]

While I was trying to learn how to use the animation & scripting features of SVG graphics, my KDE toolbar stopped responding properly. Normally, I can still use the button on the task manager on the bottom panel to switch tasks, and use the Alt+F2 launcher to open non-KDE applications (firefox, etc).

However, when I click on the Kickoff button, or try to launch a KDE application from the Alt+F2 launcher, all KDE applications stop. I can't use the task manager to switch applications or use the desktop switcher to switch desktops. I can use Alt-Tab and Alt-F1/F2/F3/F4. When I use the Alt-F# combination, the task bar doesn't update the tasks from those displayed on the old desktop to the new desktop. The Alt-F2 launcher stops appearing as well. I tried using ubuntu-bug with the process ID for kwin before manually submitting this report, but nothing happened.

Usually, Kickoff will open after several minutes, although I can't open KDE applications with it. The options to reboot or power down don't appear. The option to log off is still there, but nothing happens when I select it.

I can reboot using the command line. However, when I log back in, KDE will open all of the applications that were open when I first had this problem, rather than the applications that were open when I most recently logged off. It makes me think that KDE is storing my session information in a file that isn't updated when I reboot from the command line. Oddly enough, the applications that open automatically when I log in include some KDE applications, even though I can't get Dolphin, Konsole, etc. to work when I select them from the Alt+F2 launcher.

The problem seems very similar to the troubles described in Bug #887933:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kwin/+bug/887933
However, I don't think I was doing anything with fglrx-installer when I started getting problems. Furthermore, that bug hasn't been touched since 2013.

My only guess as to the cause of this is that something in one of KDE's many configuration files got corrupted because KDE needed to access some of the same graphics memory that Firefox was using for my SVG experiments. This guess is almost certainly incorrect.

1) My Ubuntu release:
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS
Release: 14.04
2) The version of the package:
apt-cache policy kwin
N: Unable to locate package kwin
I don't know why neither apt-cache nor apt-get can find kwin.

[Jacob M. Carson (reneviht)]

I fiddled around with the entries in $KDEHOME/share/config/session and $KDEHOME/share/config/ksmserverrc to remove some of the autostarting applications I didn't need. Upon rebooting, I no longer had problems using the Application Launcher, using any panels, or starting KDE applications from Konsole. I removed three applications, two of which were KDE applications: Okteta and Okular. As such, I'm adding those to this bug report, since they may have been the sources of the problem. The third application was Frescobaldi, which runs through Python.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

This bug is very old, if it is still an issue please update the bug with information from a supported release.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for kwin (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]