[Software] Chrome has been flickering since today.

[Nunzio77]

Hi, I have Kubuntu version 25.04. Today I turned on my laptop and as soon as I opened Chrome (a .deb version downloaded from the official website), I noticed a notification telling me Chrome is up to date. However, starting today, images flicker when navigating pages or in settings.
This only happens with Chrome. It's possible that this update is causing some display issues.

Has this happened to you too?

Until yesterday, it wasn't happening, and Chrome was working fine.

[claydoh]

I am not seeing it (I am not running 25.04), but Chrome did see an update from Google in the past day or so.

[Nunzio77]

Do you have any extensions?

The only two I have are Bitdefender's Traffic Light and uBlock Origin Lite. I don't want uBlock Origin Lite causing problems now...
I'll try disabling it when I get to my laptop today.

[claydoh]

I have two work-related extensions, plus one for copying text on pages where it has been blocked.

[Nunzio77]

I think I figured out what the problem is... Wayland... I noticed it switched from X11 to Wayland, and maybe that's the cause; some video driver may have failed...
I have another, newer laptop that uses Wayland, and I'm having no problems with Chrome.

How do I switch back to X11?

[claydoh]

You select the session at your login screen.


But if it wasn't flickering before, on 25.04, I wonder if it is a Chrome bug or maybe graphics?. I got another Chrome update today fwiw. I am not seeing similar complaints out there yet, or even ones in the past when everyone else already had Plasma 6.3.x

I had very bad font rendering in certain places in Chrome for a few weeks, as well as Chromium, and no matter the display server, for example. It was only fixed in 141 very recently. But checking x11 is easy and quick. Hopefully it fixes this.

[Nunzio77]

You select the session at your login screen.

During the login session it doesn't let me choose anything and in the settings at session startup it only lets me set Wayland. From the terminal I installed the Xorg - X11 package.

[claydoh]

Odd, you should have the option -- the selection wasn't removed until 25.10 (released last week), where it moved into a separate package.

The login should be there in 25.04 if you click on the session name:




On 25.10, the package plasma-session-x11 is needed. This doesn't exist in 25.04, so I am


There is no setting to select a default login session, as the last one used is remembered. In SDDM's settings, you can set the desired session for autologin.

[Nunzio77]

Odd, you should have the option -- the selection wasn't removed until 25.10 (released last week), where it moved into a separate package.

The login should be there in 25.04 if you click on the session name:




On 25.10, the package plasma-session-x11 is needed. This doesn't exist in 25.04, so I am


There is no setting to select a default login session, as the last one used is remembered. In SDDM's settings, you can set the desired session for autologin.

I can confirm that the option doesn't appear on the login screen.
How can I try installing or reinstalling Plasma X11?

[claydoh]

How can I try installing or reinstalling Plasma X11?

You would already have it --- the SDDM screen is actually using it, for example.

It is a desktop session option that is missing or damaged/corrpt maybe? Not the x11 server. Not sure which package would provide this file, though, just yet.

You can test it by trying to start a x11 session manually:

• log out
• hit alt-f3 to switch to a TTY
• log in with your username/password
• type startplasma-x11 (do NOT use sudo!)

It will either get you to the desktop, or provide errors.

The package that the session file is found is plasma-workspace. Maybe try reinstalling that. If the file is missing, it would fix that.
Since plasma-workspace provides a lot of very important files, it may be wise to also try re-installing the meta-package kubuntu-desktop just as a precaution, in case you have missing packages.

The actual file is /usr/share/xsessions/plasmax11.desktop, while the one for Wayland is /usr/share/wayland-sessions/plasma.desktop

[Nunzio77]

You would already have it --- the SDDM screen is actually using it, for example.

It is a desktop session option that is missing, not the x11 server. Not sure which package would provide this file, though, just yet.

You can test it by trying to start a x11 session manually:

• log out
• hit alt-f3 to switch to a TTY
• log in with your username/password
• type startplasma-x11 (do NOT use sudo!)

It will either get you to the desktop, or provide errors.

The package that the session file is found is plasma-workspace. Maybe try reinstalling that. If the file is missing, it would fix that.
Since plasma-workspace provides a lot of very important files, it may be wise to also try re-installing the meta-package kubuntu-desktop just as a precaution, in case you have missing packages.

The actual file is /usr/share/xsessions/plasmax11.desktop, while the one for Wayland is /usr/share/wayland-sessions/plasma.desktop

Ok thanks a lot!