Restart occasionally wipes out my windows

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1

I keep several windows open for Dolphin, Konsole, Kwrite, and Gwenview, and it’s very convenient to have these windows reopen for me when I re-login or reboot. However, for the past few months, every week or two, the windows open to blank or untitled documents, if that; and on the next restart, all of the windows are completely gone. I have to spend 20 minutes trying to find and reopen them.

Sometimes after I reopen them, they disappear again on the next reboot.

Thankfully, the integrity of my documents is unaffected.

The only warning sign that these malfunctions are about to happen is that the computer slows down, or FireFox starts acting flaky, or Plasma freaks out, or the computer locks up entirely; but by that point, the meltdown is already inevitable. Oh, speaking of FireFox, it remembers my windows, but opens them up in smaller sizes.

This has only been happening since I upgraded to Leap 15.6. In fact, the computer never locked up before I upgraded.

I sometimes wonder if it’s my hardware. I bought a Lenovo ideapad Slim 7, and then later learned that it was not verified for GNU/Linux compatibility. I didn’t even know that GNU/Linux incompatibility was a thing! I guess in recent years Microsoft has been bullying the hardware manufacturers. But this hypothesis doesn’t add up; I ran on Leap 15.3 for years with no malfunctions, and no incompatibility issues other than the touch pad. Has anyone else experienced this?

Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.6
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.11
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.115.0
Qt Version: 5.15.12
Kernel Version: 6.4.0-150600.23.60-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
Memory: 15.4 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® Xe Graphics
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 82A6
System Version: IdeaPad Slim 7 14ITL05

2

Can you try comparing behaviour with a Plasma Wayland session (assuming that is a viable option for you)?

3

I forgot Leap uses Plasma 5.27.11 by default. FWIW, I have Leap 15.6 installed (in a VM) but with Plasma 6 in use. That has brought a lot of improvements and bug fixes over the last generation of KDE.

Reference:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:KDE_repositories

Anyway, let’s see what other users come back with regarding the issue you describe.

4

A simple thing you could do is to clear the session cache (~/.config/session/*) and then on the next boot check the restored session behaviour again. (Of course the first login will be effectively using a new session as there will be no saved session).

Also could you share detailed system and graphics hardware details? You can do that using inxi -SGaz. When sharing commands and output, please post as pre-formatted text (refer to the </> button in the forum editor).

If the graphics stack is having a problem, it should be captured in the journal output. For example to get the previous boot logging…
sudo journalctl -b -1 -p 3

5

From Plasma/Wayland Known Significant Issues:

Native Wayland windows cannot save and restore their window positions; KWin would need to do it: 15329 – Save and remember positions of all windows on Wayland

The main reason I am not completely over.

On Tumbleweed I see do not see the problem that on a restart previous windows are gone.

6

I’m aware of that, but for a laptop + one external display it is generally pretty good IMHO, and in the context of this issue opening gracefully would be a good thing right?

7

I have been so distracted in the past month that I haven’t been able to try out your suggestions yet. I will try to get to them this week. But at the same time, I have not attempted to re-open all my windows, and it’s been several weeks since Plasma has killed the windows that I do have open.

Plasma still resets itself occasionally, though. That’s an issue because the reset shifts all the windows slightly to the upper left, causing the title bars of the windows at the top of the screen to be shifted completely off the screen.

8

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