After Feb 24 update my X11/KDE stopped working (can't log in). (using debian testing)

[Karel Gardas]

Hello,

I'm using debian testing so not sure if this is the right ML, but after
Feb 24 update I'm no longer capable of logging into the X11/KDE-plasma.
I simply log into, seeing KDE progress gear and then it returns back to
login. My .xsession errors shows that KDE complains about connection to
X server claiming perhaps this died.

Anybody seen this? Is there any procedure how to better debug and report
such issue?

Thanks!
Karel

[Christian Britz]

Hello Karel,

please try it with a temporary clean profile.

Regards,
Christian

--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Karel Gardas]

Hello Christian,

thanks for the idea, indeed after creating a random new and clean user
and attempt to log into the Plasma (X11) session I went in well.

On my problematic user I tried to rename some .cache and .config dirs to
remove possibility of corrupted config but this still does not help.

Do you have any idea where everywhere KDE stores its bits of data? Ref
to web page describing this will be enough so I can debug the issue and
find the culprit behind this issue...

Thanks a lot!
Karel

[Cindy Sue Causey]

On 2/25/22, Karel Gardas <gar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/25/22 13:29, Christian Britz wrote:
>> Hello Karel,
>>
>> please try it with a temporary clean profile.
>>
>

> thanks for the idea, indeed after creating a random new and clean user
> and attempt to log into the Plasma (X11) session I went in well.
>
> On my problematic user I tried to rename some .cache and .config dirs to
> remove possibility of corrupted config but this still does not help.
>
> Do you have any idea where everywhere KDE stores its bits of data? Ref
> to web page describing this will be enough so I can debug the issue and
> find the culprit behind this issue...

When I'd encounter something like this, one of the things that worked
for me was to rename (dot)Xauthority in the user's home directory. My
memory is that the file would be recreated during a (FINALLY)
successful login.

If that doesn't work, how I tripped over that was by going into the
file manager (Thunar in XFCE4) and sorting files by newest modified
dates. That hinted at what files might have been most recently touched
and thus might be a possible culprit.

Good luck!

Cindy :)
--
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *

[Karel Gardas]

Hi Cindy,

you helped a lot. Indeed, I've moved all dot files and folders into
backup and even problematic user is able to log in.

However, first configuration step brings X11 to the knees, crashing and
then I'm seeing login windows again. So I guess this is the real culprit
of what happened on problematic user. The step to duplicate is this:

hardware: amd64 + radeon R5? 230 + 2 monitors connected. One connected
to DVI, one to VGA. Monitor connected to VGA is on the left and rotated
to the portrait position.

- what I do to crash is:
- start Settings
- search for 'disp'
- select Display Configuration node
- move VGA monitor from right to left
- select rotation on left monitor (rotate 90 clockwise)
- hit 'Apply' button

^ and right after hitting Apply I get crash.

IMPORTANT: if I do *NOT* rotate left monitor, if I just move it from
right to left, X11 are able to survive! If I do *NOT* move VGA monitor
from right to left, but just rotate it, I will get again immediate crash.

Conclusion: my X11 crashes since Feb 24 update on monitor rotation on R5
230 GPU.

Question: is there any forum where should I report this conclusion to
get attention of the X11 packagers/developers?

Thanks!
Karel

[Christian Britz]

Him

you could try to diable compositing to work around problems with the
graphics driver. And you can report a bug at bugs.debian.org (you should
first do some more investigation about which component causes the problem.)

--
http://www.cb-fraggle.de

[Karel Gardas]

On 2/25/22 17:34, Karel Gardas wrote:
> hardware: amd64 + radeon R5? 230 + 2 monitors connected. One connected
> to DVI, one to VGA. Monitor connected to VGA is on the left and rotated
> to the portrait position.
>
> - what I do to crash is:
>  - start Settings
>  - search for 'disp'
>  - select Display Configuration node
>  - move VGA monitor from right to left
>  - select rotation on left monitor (rotate 90 clockwise)
>  - hit 'Apply' button
>
> ^ and right after hitting Apply I get crash.
>
> IMPORTANT: if I do *NOT* rotate left monitor, if I just move it from
> right to left, X11 are able to survive! If I do *NOT* move VGA monitor
> from right to left, but just rotate it, I will get again immediate crash.
>
> Conclusion: my X11 crashes since Feb 24 update on monitor rotation on R5
> 230 GPU.

I've also verified that while being logged into KDE following command:

$ xrandr --output VGA-0 --rotate left

crashes X11 server and I'm back into SDDM login window. I tested this to
remove any doubt if KDE framework here (thorough display config) is the
culprit or not.

Now, I'm pretty confident that this issue happened last week (7 days) or
so since this is my debian testing and I've been using it more recently
hence also updating every using day. The question is: where to report
that to get some fix?

Thanks,
Karel