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nwoki

Member

Registered: 2010-09-14

Posts: 67

[SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

I have the following setup at work: laptop with external monitor. Last week, when pulling out the HDMI cord, the laptop screen went black and X crashed. Since then I haven't been able to log into KDE on my laptop without X crashing on plasmashell startup. I get a black screen with the mouse pointer that stays on the top of the screen.
The strange thing is that if I attach the external monitor and log into Plasma, all is fine.

Any idea where to start looking for problems or what this behaviour might be caused by?

Thanks in advance

Last edited by nwoki (2016-05-18 07:07:43)

nwoki

Member

Registered: 2010-09-14

Posts: 67

Re: [SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

Looking through the logs, I can see that the error that shuts down my plasmashell session is the following:

startkde: Starting up...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Service started, version: 7.0.0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
Baloo File Indexing has been disabled                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
klauncher: Exiting on signal 1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
Unexpected response from KInit (response = 0).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
startkde: Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
Error: Can't open display: :0                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
startkde: Shutting down...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
kdeinit5_wrapper: Warning: connect(/run/user/1000/kdeinit5__0) failed: : No such file or directory                                                                                                                                                                             
Error: Can not contact kdeinit5!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
xprop:  unable to open display ':0'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
xprop:  unable to open display ':0'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
startkde: Done.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/bin/kdeinit5 from kdeinit                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Warning: connect() failed: : No such file or directory                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/bin/kdeinit5 directly                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
KCrash: Application 'kdeinit5' crashing...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keykdeinit5: Communication error with launcher. Exiting!

any ideas?

Last edited by nwoki (2016-05-15 08:49:29)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,770

Re: [SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

Just a guess -- It has been a long time since I used KDE.    Attach the monitor, boot and start KDE.  Use the configuration GUI that describes the monitor configuration.  I'll bet it has two displays configured.  Disable the one for the HDMI monitor.  Exit KDE. Remove mystery monitor. Start KDE and see what happens.

---

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Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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BWandstuffs

Member

Registered: 2015-08-11

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

Just a guess -- It has been a long time since I used KDE.    Attach the monitor, boot and start KDE.  Use the configuration GUI that describes the monitor configuration.  I'll bet it has two displays configured.  Disable the one for the HDMI monitor.  Exit KDE. Remove mystery monitor. Start KDE and see what happens.

I'm having the exact same issue to a tee, and that doesn't work. I can disable the monitor fine and exit, but unplugging it then starting KDE again results in the same issue.

EDIT: A Youtube video demonstrating what happens when you disconnect the HDMI monitor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF2ZpiNOQxk

Last edited by BWandstuffs (2016-05-16 01:03:44)

nwoki

Member

Registered: 2010-09-14

Posts: 67

Re: [SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

I'm having the exact same issue to a tee, and that doesn't work. I can disable the monitor fine and exit, but unplugging it then starting KDE again results in the same issue.

EDIT: A Youtube video demonstrating what happens when you disconnect the HDMI monitor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF2ZpiNOQxk

The video shows exactly what was happening to me.

I did as EWALLER suggested, but I was using a VGA cable this time (might be the reason this procedure worked?). The plasma desktop still crashed when i unplugged the cable from the pc but after a reboot, all is back to normal. No idea why ksmserver crashed.

@BWandstuffs: has this worked for you as well?

BWandstuffs

Member

Registered: 2015-08-11

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

@nwoki: After finding a VGA cable, a compatible monitor, and messing around with it, it actually fixed the issue surprisingly. Unplugging monitors behaves as expected now.

This is definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever had to deal with, to be honest.

nwoki

Member

Registered: 2010-09-14

Posts: 67

Re: [SOLVED] KDE (Plasma) runs only with external monitor attached

This is definitely one of the weirdest bugs I've ever had to deal with, to be honest.

Yeah, definitaly. I'll mark it as solved