Arch Linux

Storm

Member

From: Hungary

Registered: 2014-09-12

Posts: 144

[SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

So I had a pretty ugly hardware related crash and I was forced to shut the PC off by holding the power button. Since then Plasma crashes as soon as it tries to start, so I have no desktop or panel, but everything else works (I have windows, etc.) It seems clear that we are dealing with some file corruption, but that's as far as we we got. Neither the journal, nor the crash handler seems to have anything useful for determining what files got messed up. Created a new user for testing and it had no problems.

Journal: https://pastebin.com/kndQbLqV
Crash handler: https://pastebin.com/k3pLsGv4

Help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Something in ~/.config was corrupted. I never found out exactly what, but Plasma works now.

Last edited by Storm (2026-08-31 13:01:49)

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"Sic itur ad astra per aspera."

espresso

Member

From: Potemkin Village,Pale Blue Dot

Registered: 2023-05-15

Posts: 87

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

Edit: V1del is more thorough

Given your useful testing, to me it suggests cache corruption where advice can include things like

rm -rf ~/.cache/kwin

  and

mv ~/.config/kwinrc ~/.config/kwinrc.old

Last edited by espresso (2026-08-10 19:22:51)

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V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,361

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

Just from the spots where it crashes reinstall minimally kirigami and libplasma.

But to get a better view of the nature of the issue

sudo LC_ALL=C pacman -Qkk | grep -v ', 0 altered files' | grep -v backup > /tmp/howbadisit.txt
cat /tmp/howbadisit.txt | curl -s -H "Accept: application/json, */*" --upload-file - 'https://paste.c-net.org/'

post the link you get.

Since a new user is apparently fine, maybe also some config, that will be a bit harder to properly evaluate, if you're lucky just some cache in case removing .cache/plasmashell of the affected user might already help.

In general try to avoid power buttoning, if the crash is just the GPU or so there are ways to fairly safely reboot, so if you potentially envision running into such a situation more often, consider https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Keyboa … el_(SysRq) and the REISUB sequence (though this has to be explicitly enabled first)

Storm

Member

From: Hungary

Registered: 2014-09-12

Posts: 144

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

post the link you get.

https://paste.c-net.org/GableKaufman

EDIT:

Reinstalled kirigami and libplasma. Still crashing.

Deleted .cache/plasmashell. Still crashing.

Last edited by Storm (2026-08-19 08:56:11)

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"Sic itur ad astra per aspera."

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,682

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

I'd first and foremost figure whether this is a systemwide or user-local issue.
Create a new user and log into as plasma session as that => still crash?

#6  0x00007f4010921d4b _ZN8Kirigami8Platform13PlatformTheme12setTextColorERK6QColor (libKirigamiPlatform.so.6 + 0x1ed4b)

Some bogus color palette in the plasma settings?
You could also just  move the existing ~/.config out of the way…

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Storm

Member

From: Hungary

Registered: 2014-09-12

Posts: 144

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

Create a new user and log into as plasma session as that => still crash?

I have already done that (stated in the first post). New user works fine.

Some bogus color palette in the plasma settings?

This is a relatively fresh install as I got a new rig. I have configurations and customizations from my previous system, some of which still needs to be updated. But Plasma was working just fine for weeks, until I had a hardware crash.

You could also just  move the existing ~/.config out of the way…

I'll test that and report back.

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"Sic itur ad astra per aspera."

Storm

Member

From: Hungary

Registered: 2014-09-12

Posts: 144

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

You could also just  move the existing ~/.config out of the way…

I'll test that and report back.

Well, that worked, so we now know that it was a corrupted config.

But I would still like to figure out which one exactly, because having to redo all of my customizations from the past decade from scratch would be a pain.

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"Sic itur ad astra per aspera."

Storm

Member

From: Hungary

Registered: 2014-09-12

Posts: 144

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

So, I have started moving my configs back into the re-generated ~/.config folder in batches. I have moved almost everything back, except a couple things that I either have no idea what they are or I think I don't need them anymore. Plasma still works.

So I have never learned exactly what was corrupted but it seems it wasn't anything that I actually needed. Thank you everyone who replied, this is now SOLVED.

Now I only need to figure out how many human sacrifices do I need to make to the dark gods to have windows open on the correct damn screen and desktop(s)...

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"Sic itur ad astra per aspera."

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,682

Re: [SOLVED] Plasma desktop crashes after hard reboot

When and how did you move stuff back?
Plasma would likely write back configs on exit, ie. the good runtime config might have overwritten the bad one you had.

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