Kubuntu Forums - Miscellaneous

After system crash an app is autostarting - but no autostart entries

LuigiCalamar — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:05:58 GMT

I've been having an issue where after a system crash - when I restart kubuntu some app(s) will autostart - but they are not in any autostart entries I can find. I don't want them to autostart but can't find what is causing them to autostart?

[ABANDONED]netflix vs browser wars

die.boer — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 16:59:27 GMT

ok guys i'm looking for some recommendations regarding browsers specifically netflix friendly...
some history with my battles
been on A LOT of distros and a lot of browsers , and all eventually starts giving me grief with netflix not playing properly , quality wise / stuttering.
now i've been on kubuntu couple months and using zen browser and all this time netflix worked perfectly.
until yesterday i decided to use wireless/bluetooth earpods rather than the wired earplugs i've been using all along when on netflix or wherever (i know that shouldn't caused a problem, but here we are)
since then netflix plays crap , even after switching bluetooth off.
i've then tried chrome browser (don't judge lol) which i have installed for a specific site , and 1st off it played netflix with bluetooth earpods fine, for like 10 min. then it started stuttering ...
i then cleared zen's history,cache /pages , about 1GB , but netflix still crap.
now like i said i've been through this before , and i've changed distros cause of it (probably not distros fault) , but i like to experiment anyway lol.
i'm super happy with kubuntu and really don't want to start distro hopping again , just to try goddamn netflix to work , every time all the time ...
so yea , if any1 uses netflix with no problem , i'd like to know which browser ?
cause i think i tried them all

Restart in Kubuntu won't work

Qqmike — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 15:43:35 GMT

Suddenly, past couple days, on my PC, with K 22.04, K > Restart won't work:
The screen freezes at the K screen with Kubuntu pulsing, but doesn't go any further.
Pressing the Restart button on the PC fixes it, and the PC reboots correctly back into Kubuntu.

Ideas on what's going on / how to fix it?

Moving, resizing, and replacing BTRFS file systems and their partitions

oshunluvr — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 23:35:24 GMT

I was checking my 4 NMVE drives for wear and my boot NVME drive showed "Percentage Used: 49%" while the other NVME drives are 0-3%. This number is the manufacturers best guess about the life span of the drive - so half dead.
I decided to move my booting BTRFS file system to a different drive and use the more worn one for backups. I detailed this here thinking someone else might find it useful.

The root file system takes the whole drive - 932G and is 50% full, The target drive also was 932G and had about 550G of backups on it. I wanted to reverse the setup: make the current backup drive the boot drive and vice versa. After reviewing all my file systems, I decided I would move the backup file system somewhere, move the root file system onto that drive, then move the backup file system to the worn drive, but I didn't have enough free space available and contiguous to do it.

I ended up following these steps:

Step 1) I had 2 EXT4 file systems - VM drives and their backups - that were less than half full so I moved the files off of one onto the other.

This left 290G free on that drive. There was also a sacrificial partition of 410G on the same drive, if combined: enough room in total to hold the backup file system, but still not contiguous.
Between these two available partitions was my Steam partition (BTRFS) of 250G and about 85% full.

Step 2) I used the "btrfs add" command to add the Steam file system to the 290G partition. This happens instantly. I then used "btrfs remove" to remove the 250G partition from the combined file system. This took about 50 minutes to complete.

I now had 590G free (290+250) and contiguous which is enough to hold the backup file system. A bonus was the getting-close-to-full Steam partition now has 40G more space.

Next, to move the backup file system to this drive so I can put the root file system in it's place.

Step 3) I again did "btrfs add" followed by "btrfs remove". This time it took about 2 hours to complete.

Note that since the target partition is smaller than the source, the file system will be reduced in size to fit in the smaller space. If there isn't enough room on the target partition for all the data, the command will abort immediately.

Next, to move the root file system to the now empty backup drive.

Step 4) This time, rather than add+remove which is slow, I used the "btrfs replace" command, which is much faster. This took less than 20 minutes.

Note that the "replace" command requires one extra step to run it. You need to know the device ID number which appears as "devid" when you use "btrfs filesystem show".

I now was more than half-way to completing my task. However, up to this point I had not rebooted and was still using the system for other tasks while btrfs did it's thing.

UH-OH!) Then I snafu'd by deciding to run "partprobe" since I had been moving partitions around. This froze the system immediately requiring a hard reset to reboot.

To make it more fun, on reboot I ended up in the GRUB console and had to manually boot from it. No biggie as I had done that before (too many times). Once I was booted, I simply ran "update-grub" and it rebooted successfully. I suspect had I updated grub without running partprobe, I would have been able to proceed without a reboot.

Step 5) Last task to complete my goal was to move the root backup file system from the Steam drive to the old root drive. Here, I used "btrfs replace" again.

However this time the file system was only 590G in size and was "replaced" to a 953G partition. In this scenario you have to "grow" the file system before you can use the additional free space.

Step 6) The command is simple and immediate: "btrfs fi resize max "

My goal was complete. All that was left was to re-create the deleted EXT4 partition for the VM backups and move the files back.

Key Take-aways and more info:

These operations are potentially harmful if you were to lose power. Backups are essential, and if possible, also a battery backup system for a desktop PC.

Notice that at no time did I document editing fstab or updating grub after moving btrfs file systems around. That's because I didn't need to. The add, remove, and replace functions retain and move file system labels and UUIDs. Unless you are mounting using something other than one of these two entries to mount or boot, there's no need to edit anything.

Except for my snafu, all of this happened while continuing to use the system normally. In fact, all the file systems must be mounted to use these commands. The whole operation (minus the grub repair) took about 4 hours.

In Step 2 I could have added the two partitions together without using "add|remove" to relocate the Steam partition. However, then Step 4 would have required two sets of "add|remove" commands instead of the single and much faster "replace" command.

The "btrfs replace" command cannot be cancelled or interrupted. To use "replace" the file system must be equal to or smaller that the target partition. Space permitting, you can shrink the file system in place and then use the command.

The "remove" command can be cancelled and resumed later. The "add" command is quickly reversible with "remove" unless you added files to the combined file system or have run a "balance" command.

Commands used and examples(all require sudo rights):

btrfs device add

btrfs de ad /dev/nvme3n1p3 /mnt/steam

btrfs device remove

btrfs dev remove /dev/nvme3n1p4 /mnt/steam

btrfs filesystem show (to retrieve the "devid" to use the replace command)

btrfs fi sh

btrfs replace start

btrfs rep start 2 /dev/nvme1n1 /mnt/root_backup

btrfs replace status (to see how the command is proceeding)

btrfs rep status

btrfs filesystem resize

btrfs fi re max /mnt/root_backup/

[SOLVED]Printer issue is frustrating

Qqmike — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 23:02:54 GMT

Boy, this printer stuff, sometimes seems to never end. I spent all afternoon and a lot of time yesterday on this.

Printer: HP DeskJet 2742e
Kubuntu: 22.04
History: It used to be that HPLIP was the answer for me. Past few printers, NOPE!, doesn't work well.

Background:
Using my previous ISP DSL router that had a WPS button on it, and pressing the WiFi button on the printer, and the WPS configured it nicely and quickly.
New T-Mobile 5G Gateway modem/router doesn't have the WPS button or a virtual WPS capability in its T-Life app.
I saw a 'proposed' workaround, but it looked very involved.

Result so far:
AI & I have tried half a dozen things. The simple solution of using Settings > Printers > Add, or using CUPS, both work to get the printer printing.

However: No matter how well I make the Letter size 8.5x11" stick in Settings > Printers or in CUPS, when I go to actually print a page,
the Show Preview option shows 8x10! The result is a page with margins/text cut off.

Temporary "solution":
Just make the margins wide, like 1" or 1.25"! Then it will look halfway normal when printed.

Question: Any ideas?

Right click leave option in KDE Plasma 6 SOLVED

maverick — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 07:02:33 GMT

I did this with Debian based and Redhat based Linux Flavors- works well with both.

To restore the right click leave option, right click on start button and choose "Edit Applications"

In the window that opens, choose New then New Item

Name New Item "Leave"

Leave will appear in the left column of Items in the window you opened, Click on "Leave"

On the right side of window, click on the "General" tab if it is not highlighted.

Under Name it should say "Leave" if it does not type : "Leave" in the Name field.

In the Program field enter "systemctl"

In the Command-line arguments field type "poweroff"

Click "save" at the top of the window

Now right click on your empty desktop and choose "Desktop and Wallpaper"

In the far left column click on "Mouse Actions"

You will now see two drop down menus one for the right mouse button and one for the left mouse button.

Choose one, and choose "Application Launcher" Click the other and choose "Standard menu"

The "Application Launcher has the "Leave" option at the bottom of menu when clicked.

Google 2FA passkeys can't be saved on Linux ??

oshunluvr — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:55:12 GMT

TL/DR: Does anyone know how to make a Google Passkey that works from my Kubuntu PC?

If you turn 2FA on your Google account, it wants a passkey on the 2FA device - my cell phone. This worked great UNTIL my phone broke. Google sent me a new phone, but I was totally unable to log into my Google account and actually use the phone because the phone was the 2FA device. Totally stupid - A true, real life Catch-22.

Finally my wife got Google on the phone (an actual person) and after several hours of back and forth and trying to use my Chrome OS tablet: NOTE, it doesn't work - at least in part because Googles own instructions are totally wrong. The instructions tell to you to go to a menu on the Chrome OS device that does not exist. I suspect the instructions are grossly out-of-date because they're sunsetting ChromeOS in preference to straight Android on tablets.

Finally - the agent elevated the problem to a higher level and they re-set my account to turn off 2FA, thus allowing me to log into my Google account and restore my phone from my backup. There was a great moment at the end (3-4 hours on the phone) when the help desk person asked me if I wanted help turning on 2FA!. I almost lost it. I said "Hell NO, that's what led to all this trouble in the first place!" Anyway, that was like 6 months ago and I honestly would like to use 2FA again because you can access most of my life from my phone. But I simply cannot unless I can somehow be able to have the 2FA passkey on a different device.

I tried today to get Google Chrome on my desktop to do it. But once again - shocker - the instructions are wrong. I managed to find the correct menu location on Chrome Browser to create a Passkey but I got the reply "Your device doesn't support creating passkeys..." so I'm still searching for a solution.

I have considered using Chrome on a Windows VM, but that seems very klunky.

NOTE: AI generated responses to this problem are (as expected based on my experience) even more wrong than Google's. No need to cut-and-paste AI "help" - thanks. For example, Google's own AI lists the steps that get you to the "Your device doesn't support creating passkeys..." message. Stupid. I swear all this AI garbage is making it harder and harder to find real websites that actually have real information.

I'm looked for actual experience with this and instructions that work, or sensible alternatives.

[RESOLVED]Ventoy......... I know im missing something obvious as it really cant be this clunky....

Old and Confused — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 06:02:06 GMT

So i need to create a ventoy usb disk on my shiny new Kubuntu install. So i goto google type ventoy download linux Ubuntu and then it all goes horribly wrong.

Every guide I goto tell me a different thing every time i follow then (Bare in mind its me so following probably being generous) just leads to more confusion.

Why isnt it in Discover or a downloadable click and go format. A web link? Really I thought we wanted people to use Linux?

Ok rant aside please for love of sanity how do i make this work with out going into arcane vodo script (Konsole) ty in advance for anyone who can help.