I have notice for some time a small black square appear when logging into KDE desktop in the middle of the background image. It seems this is where the cursor appears if not moved, but if I move the cursor the square still shows.
Here’s KDE Info
Its a small thing, just curious if anyone has see this before.
Have never seen this issue on our Plasma machines.
What happens if you tap F5 key (“Refresh Desktop”) - still see it?
What if you log out, back to the login screen. Then select “Plasma X11” (vs Plasma wayland) (see screenshot)- still see it?
Still there? Yes … another test:
3. Create a brand new user account - log out of your regular user account, and log into the new acct - still see it?
1 Tried F5 “Refresh Desktop” no effect.
2 Tried logging in on X11, the square does not show, so this worked.
3 Tried logging on wayland with a new user, the square does not show, so this worked.
So it looks like maybe something with the account?
Here’s some screenshot of different background image repositories
So it seems regardless of background selection the black square is there on wayland
Thanks for the feedback. And yea, I’m thinking there is something Plasma or “screen” related. Unfortunately, I can’t provide an possible issue.
My guess is that there might be a “cache” issue. Plasma screen data and sub-components … and browser applications, and many other applications have a tendency to temporarily store data in a user’s “.cache” sub-directory.
It’s a hidden sub-directory, but can be seen with:
myuser@machine:~> ls -al ~/
total 24508
drwxr-xr-x 1 myuser users 784 Jun 29 15:21 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 28 Mar 5 09:01 ..
-rw------- 1 myuser users 74205 Jun 29 20:38 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 myuser users 1206 Oct 10 2024 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 1 myuser users 0 Aug 23 2025 bin
drwx------ 1 myuser users 1444 Jun 29 20:38 .cache <========
drwx------ 1 myuser users 3562 Jun 30 09:45 .config
[...]
myuser@machine:~>
For some apps that have an issue, I’ve cleared the app’s cache content to fix an issue.
Maybe other folks will stop in and make a suggestion.
Is it possible that you have Zoom&Magnifier activated?
Go to systemsettings → accessibility → zoom & magnifier and select “Disabled” on the zoom options
The Systemsettings->accessibility->Zoom & Magnifier is set to Disabled.
Also the the KDE Display settings
there is no scale set or its at 100%
I delete the .cache folder, this did not solve the problem.
Tried going into the new user account on wayland and change some desktop dackground settings, changing cursor settings. All worked with no black square showing.
So it seems someting with the account. I going to try changing some KDE desktop effects to see if that might work
Tried this command:
kwin_wayland --replace
this worked and the black square does not show. Not sure what happens with this command though?
It kills the current KWin Wayland compositor and starts a new instance. Interesting it worked.
