KDE/Troubleshooting

This article contains various sections to help users of KDE software troubleshoot their systems.

Rebuilding the application database
If the KMenu lacks any application or the whole application list, the KDE application database probably needs to be rebuilt. This is also a possible fix for any KMenu related issues, like missing icons.

Akonadi complains about the MySQL config
Start by checking the permissions in. If they're 700, update them to 755 recursively.

If that doesn't solve the error, open the akonadi configuration in and change the default MySQL config. To use a MySQL server and not the local mysqld executable, make sure that MySQL is running.

Black screen after login
Make sure does not have any interactive components like keychain. Check for the prompt for input.

Screen tearing or flickering when using Radeon graphics drivers
If there is severe flickering or "tearing" when using Radeon based graphics cards, it may be necessary to change the compositor sync settings to something other than the default "Automatic":

Delayed response of KMenu, krunner, etc.
Packages from the  category provide a   USE flag which in the past has caused this effect. It is not advised to enable it. If for no good reason this flag is found to be enabled for,  or , then remove all occurrences of this flag and rebuild affected packages.

Missing shutdown, reboot, suspend, or hibernate buttons
Make sure that and  are installed. Also check that the user is in the group.

KDE Plasma high CPU usage
If you are noticing relatively high CPU usage (normally the dbus-daemon or kwin_x11 processes) when running KDE Plasma make sure to check the syslog for errors that look like the following. Normally just tailing the log will enable you to see this right away since the error is thrown at such a high rate.

This occurs due to being unable to connect to the bluetooth service you can ensure this is started by running on OpenRC systems. To ensure this does not happen on any other start run the following.

Alternatively bluetooth can be disabled from via the GUI.

Compilation failure
is one of the few packages known to consistently fail when the  value on MAKEOPTS is set too high. If you see mysterious build failure, try lowering your  value. The safe value would be the number of processor times thread (not that plus one).

Similar case has been found when compiling with option while KDE Plasma is running (observed with  and ). The build failure would be accompanied with desktop program lagging (or crashing). If this happen, you might want to consider compiling under TTY.

In other case when you see out-of-memory failure, you may want to get rid of on CFLAGS.

Plasma Browser Integration not working in Firefox
For the Plasma Browser Integration to work, not only must and the browser extension be installed, but also the browser history has to be enabled.

Device permissions issues and missing shutdown/reboot options
When experiencing authorization or permissions issues in an OpenRC profile make sure that is present, properly configured and   USE flag is globally enabled.

Missing suspend or hibernate options
Beyond that, suspend and hibernate options depend on that support being enabled in the kernel, see also: Suspend and Hibernate

Can't unmount /home
If an error like this appears:   reinstalling without  may help.
 * Unmounting /home ...
 * in use but fuser finds nothing [ !! ]

Pinentry GPG dialogue for KDE Plasma isn't working
For example when using KMail to sign emails with PGP, the private key needs to be decrypted. If this key has a password, a Pinentry dialogue trys to open. To enable the Qt version, these configuration files need to be edited.