[SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

kapz · 2009-09-27 07:28:40

Hi all, I recently updated my arch system and updated KDE and KDEPIM libs. However now while booting everytime the KDE 4.3.1-1 freezes at startup for around 5 minutes or so, if there is no internet connection! Whenever my adsl router is switched off, KDE freezes, but doesn't if my router is up and running internet connection(tested it like 3 times in both the cases with same results), also sometimes after booting and when KDE unfreezes, I am unable to ping my router & any machine connected to my arch box, I then try restarting network daemon(which is what I use for managing network) but to no avail, I then have to reboot system so that the router and other machine can ping arch box.
And just to confirm, I am not using any widget or plasmoid that would require net connection in KDE.All I have is firefox and amarok icon on desktop and nothing else.

I have eth0 and eth1 connections which work perfectly fine, except a few times when KDE makes my kernel too busy at startup and then I have to reboot, as mentioned above.

Any help would be appreciated.

Last edited by kapz (2009-10-09 18:28:02)

Slurp · 2009-09-27 15:38:56

mmm... do you use Wicd? if not you could try it...

grey · 2009-09-27 18:14:00

How do you start KDE - kdm, startx or something else?
Also, what happens if you try to start a different DE, say fluxbox or twm - do they come up OK?

kapz · 2009-09-27 23:30:07

I use kdm to start KDE. I dont have any other DE, will try twm though...

But the problem arised after me updating arch for kdepimlibs..earlier everything was working fine. The strange thing is KDE freezes if and only if there is no internet connection. I dont understand the relation of KDE startup with a working internet connection!? KDE plasmoid keeps scanning and adding wallpapers for slide show(if I enable slideshow) but it still freezes if I use a stil image or no image for desktop.

grey · 2009-09-28 10:00:23

While you're debugging the problem I suggest to start KDE via startx, with

exec ck-launch-session startkde

in your .xinitrc. It shouldn't be related, but it just removes one possible source of the problem.

If the problem is related to your KDE configuration, you could then try two things:
1. create a new user, log on as that user. See if the problem is still there.
2. move ~/.kde4 elsewhere, start kde, then move things back - you're probably only interested in .kde4/share/apps

Last edited by grey (2009-09-28 10:00:48)

mrunion · 2009-09-28 12:43:08

Definitely a WAG from me, but might you have an applet or plasmoid that is trying to start and get something from the internet? Maybe it's not handling a connection not being available. That's all I can think of right off.

KlavKalashj · 2009-09-28 13:02:27

For me, the problem was the network applet plasmoid. Uninstalling it and installing the old knetworkmanager works fine, although knetworkmanager kind of sucks... Most wireless securitys don't work, and mobile broadband is really hard to get working. I use pon/poff for this but for wired connections and non-encrypted networks, it's just fine.

I really wonder if there is any development going on with the plasmoid. I see a lot of development within KDE - but only for kind of useless plasmoids and applications. I just wish they would fix these basic things, before they start working on new features.

kapz · 2009-09-29 04:11:41

Hi all and thanks, well I have made sure that no widget/plasmoid is running at all, and I use the static IP address for network in rc.conf and resolv.conf, I dont use any kind of network manager, but still m getting the same results to login to my account.
Also, disabled kdm and booted into console and did startx, twm loads fine without any problem irrespective of internet connection.

Created new user and logged into KDE through KDM and the results:

Without internet connection KDE takes 4:13.4 secs to login and become 'usable'
With internet connection it takes 0:42:3 secs to login normally.

Now, after creating new user account and after the first KDE start, added akonadi resource,disabled Korganizer, but something catched my eye was is that notify daemon displayed the message for nepomuk being organized and stuff.

Then rebooted the system and again after around 4 minutes KDE unfreezed and I tried to login to router, but guess what, it was unreachable! tried pinging it and my laptop connected to other NIC but no outgoing! even from the root account, restarted network daemon to no avail. Then rebooted and waited 4 mins again and voila the outgoing is started again! logged into router and started the net connection and rebooted, KDE started in 42 secs!!!

Again disabled the internet and added 'exec ck-launch-session startkde' in .xinitrc file and rebooted, but it took the same 4 mins to login and become usable.
The common thing that happened w/o internet connection for my existing profile and new profile was that INITIALLY(for about a min) the desktop is shrinked to the top left corner of the screen around 3/4th of size and then after a min or so expands to full screen width and remaind as it is till its unfreezed.

Any ideas...??

Last edited by kapz (2009-09-29 04:12:40)

grey · 2009-09-29 08:17:00

Any ideas...??

Frankly, no. The next thing I would try to pinpoint the cause of the problem is the following:
1. reboot to console
2. on tty1, log in as <yourself>
2. on tty2, login as root, start htop, select to only view processes of <yourself> (type u, select <yourself>), then sort by process ID (F6, select PID), then reverse sort (F4). You should see one process, namely <yourself>s login shell.
3. switch to tty1, startx.
4. When X kicks in (screen goes black), switch to tty2 (Ctrl+Alt+F2) and watch the processes in htop. They should appear in the order in which they are started, newest on top.

Hopefully you'll see which process is stuck.

kapz · 2009-09-29 13:55:01

htop shows the last process as kdeinit[4]: Plasma-desktop, with or without KDE being frozen
total processes in both the cases are counted upto ~154. So am unable to makeout as to what is freezing desktop, but I very well believe it to be the plasma-desktop because it searches for wallpapers to add everytime I login...It's definately plasma-desktop...dont know what to do about it!

KlavKalashj · 2009-09-29 14:36:17

Well... you could try kdeMOD. It's working very fine for me

grey · 2009-09-29 16:45:02

but I very well believe it to be the plasma-desktop because it searches for wallpapers to add everytime I login

Can you say a bit more about that?

kapz · 2009-09-29 20:34:22

As mentioned earlier, the last process in htop is plasma-desktop, then its just desktop that is frozen, I can move mouse. If immediately after logging in and when the screen expands to full size I click on firefox icon the firefox is started and I can browse, but after minimizing it the desktop is still frozen for 4 mins and I cant click to open anything, like kicker menu, icons etc. Then if I enable slideshow in desktop settings it scans for images and adds them(into what I dont know) everytime I start KDE...

grey · 2009-09-30 08:49:13

Ok, I thought that plasma trying to fetch the wallpapers could be the cause of the problem. But you're saying that happens only later, right?

Googling 'kdeinit4 plasma-desktop' shows some reports similar to yours. The closest one was
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=202309, and maybe you could do the same: create an strace of the plasma process and submit a bug report at kde.org.

To create the strace:
1. $ pacman -S strace
2. use htop as above to get the pid of the kdeinit[4]: plasma-desktop process
3. $ strace -o <somewhere> -p <plasma pid>
4. when you're done, have a look at <somewhere> to see if you can find something, or else just attach <somewhere> to your bug report.

Last edited by grey (2009-09-30 08:50:13)

kapz · 2009-10-01 00:52:58

Yep there are some similar bugs already on bugzilla. Have uploaded mine as well.....Wud wait for the next update to get it resolved(hopefully). Anyways thanks for the post, this was my first bug trace ever..would do it frequently now.........

kapz · 2009-10-05 18:52:12

Ok now I played with rc.conf for network connection, I have posted another topic for it for adding seperate gateways..but now all of a sudden It's working perfectly fine! I have no idea what happened but now kde scans for wallpaper and it does not freeze at all!.

Altough wud do some tests before marking it resolved...

kapz · 2009-10-07 14:57:05

Bingo! Found the culprit.

Its the code in /etc/hosts file. My file used to be like this(old code):

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain LyniX

But changing it to(new code):
Edit*

127.0.0.1 Lynix.localdomain.org localhost.localdomain Lynix localhost

*Edit

solved the problem. And I tried reverting to old code only to rediscover that KDE freezes without active internet connection(Only KDE is affected and not network)

Can anyone please explain why this happens as earlier it didn't use to freeze with the old code.
What is the relation!!?(Anyways I dont the purpose of /etc/hosts file in linux)

Thanks

Last edited by kapz (2009-10-07 14:59:02)

Gen2ly · 2009-10-07 23:22:06

From what I know localhost has always need to be specified in /etc/hosts. Good you found it (easy enough to miss a part in the beginners guide from time to time). Just for note, it doesn't look likes its a problem for you but for all the installs I've done localhost comes before hostname. Again, probably not a big deal...

#
# /etc/hosts: static lookup table for host names
#

# <ip-address>  <hostname.domain.org>               <hostname>
127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost   part-emach
192.168.103.100                                     part-pmac
# End of file

Last edited by Gen2ly (2009-10-07 23:22:33)

kapz · 2009-10-08 19:06:24

Yeah seems like every small/big things matters in linux..and well it is a big deal for me, coz messing it up causes KDE to freeze for a long time and since that file is a standard in every distro the file's layout must be important because archwiki instructs to strictly write the file in that format, was just trying to get the answer for WHY in that format..I guess m gonna have to will learn shell scripting for that!

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-27 07:28:40

[SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#2 2009-09-27 15:38:56

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#3 2009-09-27 18:14:00

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#4 2009-09-27 23:30:07

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#5 2009-09-28 10:00:23

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#6 2009-09-28 12:43:08

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#7 2009-09-28 13:02:27

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#8 2009-09-29 04:11:41

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#9 2009-09-29 08:17:00

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#10 2009-09-29 13:55:01

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#11 2009-09-29 14:36:17

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#12 2009-09-29 16:45:02

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#13 2009-09-29 20:34:22

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#14 2009-09-30 08:49:13

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#15 2009-10-01 00:52:58

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#16 2009-10-05 18:52:12

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#17 2009-10-07 14:57:05

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#18 2009-10-07 23:22:06

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

#19 2009-10-08 19:06:24

Re: [SOLVED]KDE freezes at startup if there is no internet connection.

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