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    #1

    KDE hangs in mid-start, for my account only.

    I'm not a new user, but this seems like the best place to start - feel free to move if appropriate...

    My laptop is having a problem that is driving me nuts, and is keeping me from getting to my email and other work...

    Normally I never shut down KDE, but have found that sometimes it thinks it's a Windows box and starts giving me problems that are helped by rebooting the machine. A few days ago it started getting less responsive than usual, and seemed to be running hot. The system monitor showed nearly 100% CPU busy, but I couldn't find any obvious CPU hogs so I decided to reboot...

    When I restarted, KDE would start and display the login screen, then start to open, but would hang on the flash screen between displaying the hard drive icon and the tools icon...

    I backed up my /home directory to an external hard disk, and reinstalled 12.0.4 from a USB stick, using the existing disk configuration (hoping that this would keep from disturbing my /home) Didn't change anything.

    I then tried logging into another existing account that had never been used - it worked fine. I also created another brand new account, which also started up with no problem.

    This makes me think that the problem is in my /home directory... But I can't find anything wrong. Over the course of several attempts, I have tried deleting .Xauthority and .ICEauthority, and renaming every hidden file that has a modification date after the end of August to *.old, hoping that I would regenerate a clean start, allowing me to get the system running at least.

    There is a hidden file .xsession-errors, but a version of that exists in both the problem and the working account user directories, and the one in the working account actually looks more alarming - and neither says that its exiting or fatal. As it's a minor pain to get files from the problem machine to the one I'm writing this message on, I won't try to copy unless someone thinks it's a useful hint.

    I'm currently totally stumped as to what I should try next - short of nuking the entire setup and restoring everything from scratch...

    Data on system -

    Kubuntu release: "Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"
    Installed directly onto the system - no Microsoft products used!
    KDE version: Platform Version 4.8.5
    GRUB version: 0.97-29ubuntu66
    No other operating systems installed

    Data on PC:

    Lenovo Thinkpad model SL500 laptop
    CPU: Centrino, dual core, 32 / 64 bit (32bit Kubuntu installed) CPU Family 6, Model 23, Stepping 10, 800MHz
    GPU: Intel Mobile 4 Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
    2.92 GiB RAM, 2.96GiB swap
    One internal HD, ATA. Model WDCWD3200BEVS-0 Rev:14.0
    One Optical Drive; HL-DT-ST Model DVDRAM GSA-T50N Rev: RE05


    Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

    ART
    Using 12.0.4 on Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 (Centrino Dual Core notebook)

    Kubuntu release: "Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"
    Installed directly onto the system - no Microsoft products used!
    KDE version: Platform Version 4.8.5
    GRUB version: 0.97-29ubuntu66
    No other operating systems installed

    Data on PC:

    Lenovo Thinkpad model SL500 laptop
    CPU: Centrino, dual core, 32 / 64 bit (32bit Kubuntu installed) CPU Family 6, Model 23, Stepping 10, 800MHz
    GPU: Intel Mobile 4 Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
    2.92 GiB RAM, 2.96GiB swap
    One internal HD, ATA. Model WDCWD3200BEVS-0 Rev:14.0 (320GB)
    One Optical Drive; HL-DT-ST Model DVDRAM GSA-T50N Rev: RE05
    Tags: hang, kde, startup
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    #2
    How much space did you allot to your / partition? If you can, boot into a command line log in. When logged in type:
    Code:
    df -hT --exclude-type=tmpfs --exclude-type=devtmpfs
    What shows as Use% for the / partition?
    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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      #3
      Originally posted by Snowhog View Post
      How much space did you allot to your / partition? If you can, boot into a command line log in. When logged in type:
      Code:
      df -hT --exclude-type=tmpfs --exclude-type=devtmpfs
      What shows as Use% for the / partition?
      Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
      /dev/sda1 ext4 92G 7.6G 80G 9% /
      /dev/sda3 ext4 199G 60G 129G 32% /home

      When installing, I put everything but /home on /dev/sda1, and /home on /dev/sda3.

      Looks reasonably empty on both - IIRC you don't start having problems w/ drive use until you are over 95% use or so...

      My system seems to work except for starting my regular account - the tty's work, allow logins, and so on, even when KDE is hung. The other two test accounts on the machine work - I can log into them and KDE starts with the default setup... I am actually connecting to write this message on one of the test accounts, so it seems that the problem is only with my normal account on the machine.

      Is there any documentation on what the icons in the KDE start sequence correspond to in terms of what KDE is doing while starting? (or is there any?) Alternatively, is there a way to get a text display of what is starting / running instead of the icon / splash screen display? I'm suspecting that it is just one thing that isn't starting properly that is causing the hang, and if I could figure out what it is, that would get me a long ways towards solving the problem...

      It is a definite stumper - I'm not a programmer, but my GF is an architect level programmer in the commercial world, and is an expert at "google-fu"; she has been looking for related stuff and hasn't been able to find anything that matches my symptoms...

      ART
      Using 12.0.4 on Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 (Centrino Dual Core notebook)

      Kubuntu release: "Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"
      Installed directly onto the system - no Microsoft products used!
      KDE version: Platform Version 4.8.5
      GRUB version: 0.97-29ubuntu66
      No other operating systems installed

      Data on PC:

      Lenovo Thinkpad model SL500 laptop
      CPU: Centrino, dual core, 32 / 64 bit (32bit Kubuntu installed) CPU Family 6, Model 23, Stepping 10, 800MHz
      GPU: Intel Mobile 4 Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
      2.92 GiB RAM, 2.96GiB swap
      One internal HD, ATA. Model WDCWD3200BEVS-0 Rev:14.0 (320GB)
      One Optical Drive; HL-DT-ST Model DVDRAM GSA-T50N Rev: RE05
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        #4
        Okay. Space on / isn't a problem.

        Re-boot and log in via command line then rename your .kde directory to say, .kdeOLD

        Logout/reboot:
        Code:
        sudo shutdown -r now
        The .kde directory will be rebuilt with default configurations.
        Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
        "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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          #5
          More data...

          I just tried running "top" in tty1 while doing different stuff in the KDE window (F7)

          If I was logged into one of the working accounts, or if KDE was waiting for a login, top showed a lot of different things running, some presumably KDE related, others system or X, with the order changing a lot - pretty much what I usually see on the rare times that I run top.

          However when I tried to log into my acount, the top line in the top display was for "kbuildsycoca4" which stayed there continously. As an experiment, I tried killing the process, (in another tty) both with kill and kill -9, and it seemed to immediately respawn, as by the time I was able to switch back to my top display, the process was at the top of the list with a different PID.

          As I mentioned in the first post in the thread, I saw a large .xsession-error file in the home directory of each account - they were different, but neither said anything about fatal problems. However the hanging account did mention kbuildsycoca4, so I'm including the one from my latest effort to start my regular account. The repeating messages from kbuildsycoca4 with different PID's is probably from my attempts to kill the process, and the fatal errors mentioned at the end are probably because I killed the Xserver in order to get back to the KDE login screen. (I would have attached the file, but I'm not allowed to do attachments for some reason)

          Does this help?

          ART

          Code:
          root@wandering:/home/atorrey# cat .xs*
Xsession: X session started for atorrey at Sat Nov 16 19:02:36 EST 2013
localuser:atorrey being added to access control list
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_US.
Start IM through /home/atorrey/.xinput.d/en_US linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/none.
startkde: Starting up...
Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
QDBusConnection: session D-Bus connection created before QCoreApplication. Application may misbehave.
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/im-switch.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/freecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/freecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kicad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/kicad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/librecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kde4/bluedevil-network-dun.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kde4/bluedevil-network-panu.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon).                                                                                                                                                             
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/home/atorrey/.local/share/applications/wine-extension-jpg.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon).                                                                                                                                                        
kbuildsycoca4(5960) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/home/atorrey/.local/share/applications/wine-extension-jpeg.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon).                                                                                                                                                       
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/im-switch.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/freecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/freecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kicad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/kicad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/librecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kde4/bluedevil-network-dun.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kde4/bluedevil-network-panu.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/home/atorrey/.local/share/applications/wine-extension-jpg.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6237) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/home/atorrey/.local/share/applications/wine-extension-jpeg.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
ERROR: Running KSycoca failed.
"KConfigIni: In file /tmp/kde-atorrey/kconf_updateBz6246.tmp, line 1: " Invalid entry (missing '=') 
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/im-switch.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/freecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/freecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kicad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/kicad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/usr/share/applications/librecad.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kde4/bluedevil-network-dun.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry Categories in "/usr/share/applications/kde4/bluedevil-network-panu.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/home/atorrey/.local/share/applications/wine-extension-jpg.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kbuildsycoca4(6341) KConfigGroup::readXdgListEntry: List entry MimeType in "/home/atorrey/.local/share/applications/wine-extension-jpeg.desktop" is not compliant with XDG standard (missing trailing semicolon). 
kdeinit4: Fatal IO error: client killed
kdeinit4: sending SIGHUP to children.
klauncher: Exiting on signal 1
kdeinit4: sending SIGTERM to children.
kdeinit4: Exit.
ERROR: Running KSycoca failed.
kded(5959): No ksycoca4 database available! 

kded(5959)/kdecore (trader) KServiceTypeTrader::defaultOffers: KServiceTypeTrader: serviceType  "KDEDModule"  not found 
kded4: Fatal IO error: client killed
          Using 12.0.4 on Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 (Centrino Dual Core notebook)

          Kubuntu release: "Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"
          Installed directly onto the system - no Microsoft products used!
          KDE version: Platform Version 4.8.5
          GRUB version: 0.97-29ubuntu66
          No other operating systems installed

          Data on PC:

          Lenovo Thinkpad model SL500 laptop
          CPU: Centrino, dual core, 32 / 64 bit (32bit Kubuntu installed) CPU Family 6, Model 23, Stepping 10, 800MHz
          GPU: Intel Mobile 4 Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
          2.92 GiB RAM, 2.96GiB swap
          One internal HD, ATA. Model WDCWD3200BEVS-0 Rev:14.0 (320GB)
          One Optical Drive; HL-DT-ST Model DVDRAM GSA-T50N Rev: RE05
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            #6
            I see you are running in SuperUser (root) mode: root@wandering:/home/atorrey# <<<< The # indicates this.

            Assuming your normal account username is atorrey, then type this command:
            Code:
            chown -R atorrey:atorrey /home/atorrey
            This will change the ownership of all directories and files within your username home directory to your username (atorrey) which they all should be. Then logout/reboot.
            Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007
            "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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              #7
              I had already tried renaming the .kde directory, but I did that again, along with the chown command in the root bash window that you suggested. (which ran w/o any problems) I also renamed the .kderc file which didn't seem likely to be a problem but...


              Unfortunately, it didn't help, I got the same problem with the hang after logging in to my regular account, and top showing kbuildsycoca4 at the top of the list (and doing 100% cpu)

              I then restarted the machine and logged into my test account with no difficulties...

              ART
              Using 12.0.4 on Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 (Centrino Dual Core notebook)

              Kubuntu release: "Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"
              Installed directly onto the system - no Microsoft products used!
              KDE version: Platform Version 4.8.5
              GRUB version: 0.97-29ubuntu66
              No other operating systems installed

              Data on PC:

              Lenovo Thinkpad model SL500 laptop
              CPU: Centrino, dual core, 32 / 64 bit (32bit Kubuntu installed) CPU Family 6, Model 23, Stepping 10, 800MHz
              GPU: Intel Mobile 4 Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
              2.92 GiB RAM, 2.96GiB swap
              One internal HD, ATA. Model WDCWD3200BEVS-0 Rev:14.0 (320GB)
              One Optical Drive; HL-DT-ST Model DVDRAM GSA-T50N Rev: RE05
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                #8
                Originally posted by ArthurT View Post
                When I restarted, KDE would start and display the login screen, then start to open, but would hang on the flash screen between displaying the hard drive icon and the tools icon...
                I also get this. Not every time I boot up (about 30% of the time). I think it started when I added a command to rc.local that turns off my unused graphics card.

                So, my pet theory is that it hangs at that point when the command is unsuccessful. Sometimes if I leave it, it eventually boots into KDE without the card turned off.

                Have you added any commands to that file, or any other files that are loaded when KDE boots up? Try commenting them out and try again, see if that helps.
                samhobbs.co.uk
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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Snowhog View Post
                  I see you are running in SuperUser (root) mode: root@wandering:/home/atorrey# <<<< The # indicates this.

                  Assuming your normal account username is atorrey, then type this command:
                  Code:
                  chown -R atorrey:atorrey /home/atorrey
                  This will change the ownership of all directories and files within your username home directory to your username (atorrey) which they all should be. Then logout/reboot.
                  Art, you don't say whether or not you did the above. Do that and check (or clear) your temp directories also - /tmp and /var/tmp

                  Please Read Me
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                    #10
                    Problem solved - sort of....

                    (ArthurT back on regular account) I have the system back to normal as far as I can tell, but don't understand at all what I did to fix it, as it makes no sense...

                    Since folks here seemed a little stumped by the problem, I also posted my tale of woe over on the KDE forum (http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=118431) and got a suggestion that since I had test accounts on the machine that worked, I should try to break them by copying files from my normal account and see if I could find what caused the problem. This solved things for me for reasons I don't understand - below I'm quoting the message from the other thread that describes my procedure / solution... I am doing a little follow up over there to see if we can figure out exactly what was wrong - but I figure this thread can be marked as 'solved'

                    Thanks again for the help,

                    ART

                    I found that my test configurations didn't like my home network, so I didn't see the last suggestions in this thread, but I did try Sven's excellent suggestion of trying to see if I could find what files from my regular account would break my test account....

                    This eventually solved my problem, although the solution makes almost no sense....

                    Using Dolphin while logged into the test account, I started copying all the hidden files and directories, a few at a time, from my broken account to the test account. I don't know why, but I got an awful lot of failures to open / read different directories / files, but most copied over OK... After each round of copying, I'd log out and log back in.

                    Eventually I found that the .local directory from the broken account broke the test account, with the same symptoms - the KDE flash screen would hang between the hard drive and crossed tool icons, and top in a TTY would show kbuildsycoca4 stuck at 100% CPU... I then switched back to the .local directory from the test account and was able to log in just fine...

                    I then tried to narrow the problem down further, and started repeating the process, copying individual files and subdirectories between the .local directories - with NO failures, even after I'd copied ALL the items in the bad .local to the one in the test account, except for the items that Dolphin refused to copy...

                    After that, I logged into a TTY, did a "sudo su" to get root power, and moved the .local in the bad account to .local.old. I then tried logging into KDE with the bad account login, and it started - with the default KDE configuration, since I'd tried all the other fixes... 8) As part of that start up, it apparently created a new .local directory, presumably with some sort of default content.

                    I then started Dolphin and restored all the changes I'd made to the hidden stuff other than the .local directory, including restoring my old .KDE directory. Again, I did frequent log out / log in sequences to make sure I didn't break anything new... Everything continued to work, and I got my old configuration back.

                    Then I started copying stuff from the .local.old directory to the new .local directory, overwriting anything that existed, or copying new if it didn't already exist... Again I kept doing the log out / log in to make sure nothing broke... This went on until I had copied ALL of the .local.old content into the working .local directory! Dolphin gave me no errors, which I'm not surprised by since I was copying the files within the same account instead of across accounts like I had been when using the test account.

                    I don't get how having a directory that caused the problem can stop causing problems just by copying it, but that seems to be the case...

                    The only things that seem to have been impacted were that I lost the IP information for my networking stuff, and Korganizer calendar lost it's connection to my calendar data file - but both of those could have been because I'd done a reinstall of Kubuntu as part of my previous troubleshooting efforts...

                    Bottom line - the problem is solved, but the solution doesn't make a lot of sense...

                    ART
                    Long time Linux user, but not programmer - Kubuntu release: "Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS" - direct install KDE Platform Ver4.8.5
                    GRUB: 0.97-29ubuntu66 - PC - Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 - 800MHz dual core Centrino; Intel Mobile 4 Graphics; 2.92 GiB RAM, 2.96GiB swap; 320MB HD, DVDRAM drive
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                      #11
                      humm .....it seams to me @ex-gooserider that you never did either of the things @ Snowhog suggested did you ,,,,,,,,,,the reason your back in to your acct is most likely ,,,that by renaming ~/.local and copying things back and forth you finally got all the files owned by you once agin ........ALL files in your /home/you (or ~/ for short) should be owned by you ,,,,,when some how some of them become owned by root we get your problem ......and most of the time the files got hijacked by root because the user ran some GUI application with "sudo" instead of "kdesudo"

                      just renaming /home/you/.kde would have probably got you in (@snowhogs post#4)

                      and his post #6 would have made all the files owned by you once agin.

                      the files that would not copy when you were copying things back and forth were the ones owned by root (more than likely)

                      VINNY
                      i7 4core HT 8MB L3 2.9GHz
                      16GB RAM
                      Nvidia GTX 860M 4GB RAM 1152 cuda cores
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