Black background with KDE4

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#1

I’ve been running KDE4 with Suse 11.2 for about a year or so now, with no problems. Yesterday, the background to my screen suddenly went black. Open windows were unaffected, but I could see my theme, the task manager, etc. I couldn’t open any programs other than the ones already open (and ones that they launch).

This problem was system-wide, in that it affects all accounts on my machine.

I thought I’d solved the problem after discussion with someone by email, by forcing KDE to recreate itself. I did this by

mv ~/.kde4 ~/oldkde4

then relogging. This, in itself, seemed to make matters worse, so I went

mv ~/.kde4 ~/newkde4
mv ~/oldkde4 ~/.kde4

and relogged. To my surprise, everything worked thereafter for a few hours.

I think this was coincidence, because, after a few hours, the same thing happened and the “fix” didn’t work anymore.

I checked .xsession-error and it says

/etc/X11/xim: Checking whether an input method should be started.
sourcing /etc/sysconfig/language to get the value of INPUT_METHOD
INPUT_METHOD is not set or empty (no user selected input method).
Trying to start a default input method for the locale en_GB.UTF-8 …
There is no default input method for the current locale.
Dummy input method “none” (do not use any fancy input method by default)
startkde: Starting up…
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_klauncher.so
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kded4.so
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kbuildsycoca4.so
kbuildsycoca4 running…
kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kconf_update.so
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘idle-hint’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘is-local’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘x11-display-device’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘x11-display’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘display-device’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘remote-host-name’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘session-type’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection
Invalid D-BUS member name ‘unix-user’ found in interface
‘org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Session’ while parsing introspection X
Error: XSyncBadAlarm 166 Extension: 146 (Uknown extension) Minor
opcode: 11 (Unknown request) Resource id: 0x0 X Error: XSyncBadAlarm
166 Extension: 146 (Uknown extension) Minor opcode: 11 (Unknown
request) Resource id: 0x0 kdeinit4: preparing to
launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_kcminit_startup.so kdeinit4: preparing to
launch /usr/lib/libkdeinit4_ksmserver.so <unknown program name>(4335)/
KStartupInfo::createNewStartupId: creating:
“Marianne;1283173265;746516;4335_TIME0” : “unnamed app” kephald
starting up XRANDR error base: 176 RRInput mask is set!!
“.xsession-errors” 369L, 28810C

Anyone got any ideas? This is making things extremely difficult for me, to say the least. Rapid responses would be highly welcome!

#2

Its unusual this would happen with no cause and effect. Can you possibly pin down a cause ?

Did you apply any updates around the time this started happening ?

ie look at output of:

rpm -qa --last

or

rpm -qa --last > myrpms.txt

and look at the rpms you installed immediately before this problem starting.

I note a reference to ‘xrandr’. Are you running that program?

#3

I have not explicitly installed anything recently. The last thing recorded as being installed is freetype2, on August 26, which I don’t recognise and must have been an automatic update. Before the background went black the first time I was trying to move a file to an external drive (which it told me was full, though I don’t believe it). The background disappeared the second time as I was typing an email.

I don’t know what ‘xrandr’ is.

#4

I have the same problem. Deleting .kde4 fixes it for a few hours. It seems to start after I enable a slideshow wallpaper?

#5

It’s not a slideshow wallpaper that starts it with me.

As I said, moving then bringing back .kde4 solved it for me the first time, but it’s not worked since.

Are you using Nvidia? Some people have suggested there may be a problem there.

#6

You could try a different graphic driver.

It would also help if those who are experiencing this problem listed the following, some of which has been mentioned and some of what has not been mentioned

  • their openSUSE version (including whether it is 32-bit or 64-bit)
  • their graphic card
  • their graphic driver
  • their desktop/version
  • the repositories they have setup (by typing: zypper lr -d )
    *]any other information that may be relevant
#7

Your copy of KDE is not genuine. …

#8

It’s the one that came with my SuSE installation. :slight_smile:

I’m following the possibility that my file system has been corrupted. Firstly, it occurred after a failed write to an external drive. Secondly, df -h shows one of my partitions to be full, when it isn’t.

I’ll let you know the result of this. In the meantime, other ideas woudl eb useful.

#9

It turns out that I’d inadvertently written files to the partition containing the root filesystem and filled it up. As root, check your system using

df -h

This will tell you how full your partitions are. My root filesystem showed 100%. Once I’d deleted the spurious files, everything worked okay.