Arch Linux

Thinking

Member

Registered: 2021-11-26

Posts: 3

Konqueror: "Undocumented Error" on Startup Page

I am seeing some weird behavior in KDE's Konqueror browser:

When starting Konqueror using one of the icons in KDE (startmenu or taskbar) it starts up like this:
URL shows "konq:blank" and the page says: "The requested operation could not be completed", "Undocumented Error".
Refreshing the page fixes the issue and shows the expected start page.

When starting Konqueror using the terminal (Konsole) or when it starts up after a reboot, everything works as expected.
With default settings, the start page address shows as completely blank, not "konq:blank".

I recorded a video showing this in action: https://i.imgur.com/c483BKX.mp4 (Not pictured: The "Unknown error code" seems to change every reboot)
The video was recorded in a Virtual Machine but I first noticed this bug on a "real" laptop.

To demonstrate this I am using a pretty "stock" installation (Vanilla Linux kernel, ext4 root, systemd-boot, en_US.UTF-8 locale, plasma-meta, kde-applications-meta).

Firefox works fine so this isn't a dealbreaker, but I am still curious if anyone else is seeing this issue? Did I maybe miss some critical thing during installation that could cause this?

DAC324

Member

Registered: 2020-03-12

Posts: 80

Re: Konqueror: "Undocumented Error" on Startup Page

Looks like this is a topic of low interest only. Apparently, there are not many people using KDE in general, or Konqueror in particular, on Arch Linux.

As I experience the same behavior here, I did some research and found this message https://www.mail-archive.com/kde-bugs-d … 65293.html

Perhaps this can help you as well.

user001

Member

Registered: 2025-10-27

Posts: 1

Re: Konqueror: "Undocumented Error" on Startup Page

SOLUTION VIA GUI.

## Fixing Konqueror HTML Handling**

### **Method A: Enable Embedded HTML Viewer**
1. Open **Konqueror**
2. Go to **Settings** → **Configure Konqueror**
3. Select **File Associations**
4. Find **HTML** files and click the **Embedding** tab
5. Check: **"Show file in embedded viewer"**

### **Method B: Set Konqueror as Default HTML Handler**
1. Open **Konqueror**
2. Go to **Settings** → **Configure Konqueror**
3. Select **File Associations**
4. Find **HTML** files and click the **General** tab
5. Set: **"Use Konqueror as first application to open HTML"**

## ? **How This Resolves the Issue**

Both methods ensure Konqueror uses its internal HTML rendering engine instead of relying on the broken `konq:` protocol system, which was causing the "unknown protocol" error when opening blank pages.

**Method A** forces embedded viewing, while **Method B** makes Konqueror the primary HTML handler - both effectively bypass the problematic protocol lookup.

SOLUTION VIA TERMINAL.
# Set Konqueror as default HTML handler
kwriteconfig5 --file kservicetyperc --group "HTML File" --key "ApplicationPreference" "konqueror"
kwriteconfig5 --file kservicetyperc --group "HTML File" --key "ServicePreference" "konqueror"

# Force embedded viewing
kwriteconfig5 --file konquerorrc --group "File Associations" --key "text/html" "konqueror"

# Rebuild configuration
kbuildsycoca5 --noincremental

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,075

Re: Konqueror: "Undocumented Error" on Startup Page

Don't post ShitGPT answers to 4 year old threads.

Closing.