startkde: Could not start ksmserver Error MX 21.1 KDE

[DMLinux]

I am getting an extremely intermittent error message a few seconds after the desktop loads after login:

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startkde: Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation.

If I try to shutdown or reboot, the taskbar, desktop icons and the wallpaper go away and the computer stops responding, forcing me to press and hold the power button.I have been able to shutdown by opening Konsole and entering "sudo poweroff". Searching for "startkde+could+not+start+ksmserver" or the complete text of the error message results in only one topic https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 66#p591266 which does does not appear to have any reference to the error (I did not read all 20 pages, after a couple, I scrolled through the rest looking for all of the search terms highlighted). An internet search resulted in finding the "sudo poweroff" work-around and another where someone running KDE and 4 other desktops on the same installation solved it by removing LDXE. All I have is KDE, and I am not (yet) dual booting.

I will repeat that this is an extremely intermittent error. As I continue learning my way around MX, Debian, KDE 5, and recovering from about 8 years of not using Linux, I sometimes reboot several times a day. This error has appeared maybe 8-10 times over about 2 weeks. With the caveat that I realize a guy named Murphy has a law regarding such things as assuming, I am assuming that if there was something with my installation OR kmserver, this error would probably be much more persistent and maybe result in a total lockup... I was able to get the screenshot of the error, run QSI, then copy both to a flash drive before running sudo shutdown to get out of it.

Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this?

Thank you!

startkde-kmserver-error_20220624_2336-r.jpg

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System:    Kernel: 5.10.0-15-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-15-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> 
           ro quiet i8042.dumbkbd=1 splash 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM 
           Distro: MX-21.1_KDE_x64 Wildflower April 9  2022 base: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Laptop 15-dy2xxx v: N/A serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 
           serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: HP model: 87FE v: 57.19 serial: <filter> UEFI: AMI v: F.15 date: 09/15/2021 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 35.8 Wh (87.7%) condition: 40.8/41.0 Wh (99.4%) volts: 12.2 min: 11.3 
           model: HP Primary type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Discharging cycles: 30 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Tiger Lake family: 6 
           model-id: 8C (140) stepping: 1 microcode: 9A cache: L2: 8 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 38707 
           Speed: 981 MHz min/max: 400/4200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 981 2: 847 3: 973 4: 1127 5: 1020 6: 791 
           7: 1024 8: 1125 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
           Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
           Type: mds status: Not affected 
           Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced IBRS, IBPB: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Not affected 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus-ID: 0000:00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:9a49 class-ID: 0300 
           Device-2: Luxvisions Innotech Limited HP TrueVision HD Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
           bus-ID: 1-3:2 chip-ID: 30c9:0035 class-ID: fe01 serial: <filter> 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: modesetting 
           unloaded: fbdev,vesa display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 142 size: 344x193mm (13.5x7.6") diag: 394mm (15.5") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.5 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: sof-audio-pci 
           alternate: snd_hda_intel,snd_sof_pci bus-ID: 0000:00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a0c8 class-ID: 0401 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.0-15-amd64 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: rtl8821ce v: v5.5.2.1_35598.20191029 modules: rtw88_8821ce,wl port: 3000 bus-ID: 0000:01:00.0 
           chip-ID: 10ec:c821 class-ID: 0280 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-10:4 chip-ID: 0bda:b00e 
           class-ID: e001 serial: <filter> 
           Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1 lmp-v: 4.2 sub-v: 7644 
           hci-v: 4.2 rev: 829a 
           Info: acl-mtu: 1021:8 sco-mtu: 255:12 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park link-mode: slave accept 
           service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller driver: vmd v: 0.6 port: 4000 
           bus-ID: 0000:00:0e.0 chip-ID: 8086.9a0b rev: class-ID: 0104 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 989.13 GiB used: 12.6 GiB (1.3%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0 size: 931.51 GiB 
           block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> 
           rev: 211210WD temp: 35.9 C scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 type: USB model: General USB Flash Disk size: 57.62 GiB block-size: 
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 1100 scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
Partition: ID-1: / raw-size: 240.05 GiB size: 235.22 GiB (97.99%) used: 10.92 GiB (4.6%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 
           ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat 
           dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 
           ID-3: /home raw-size: 683.21 GiB size: 671.42 GiB (98.27%) used: 940.4 MiB (0.1%) fs: ext4 
           dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4 maj-min: 259:4 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
           maj-min: 259:3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 41.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: 2524 note: see --pkg apt: 2518 lib: 1401 flatpak: 6 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list 
           1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
           2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           3: deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bullseye main contrib non-free
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list 
           1: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye main non-free
           2: deb http://mirrors.rit.edu/mxlinux/mx-packages/mx/repo/ bullseye ahs
Info:      Processes: 283 Uptime: 4m wakeups: 33 Memory: 15.29 GiB used: 1.22 GiB (8.0%) Init: SysVinit v: 2.96 
           runlevel: 5 default: 5 tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 alt: 10 Shell: bash 
           default: Bash v: 5.1.4 running-in: quick-system-info-mx inxi: 3.3.06 
Boot Mode: UEFI

[baldyeti]

Unfortunately i have no solution to this but i can confirm it occurs every now and then with plasma5. Usually in those rare instances i switch to a text console (say Ctrl-Alt-F1) and then hit Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Incidentally I _think_ the sessions where i am seeing this "ksmserver" message at startup are the ones i cannot properly close/restart even though i installed these patched packages.

[DMLinux]

Unfortunately i have no solution to this but i can confirm it occurs every now and then with plasma5. Usually in those rare instances i switch to a text console (say Ctrl-Alt-F1) and then hit Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Incidentally I _think_ the sessions where i am seeing this "ksmserver" message at startup are the ones i cannot properly close/restart even though i installed these patched packages.

Opening Konsole and running "sudo shutdown" (root password not required) has worked for me a couple times. It does not fix the problem. I think maybe "sudo reboot" may also be an usable workaround, but have not had a chance to try it. Since my first post, I have found a few more mentions of this problem but no solution.

Thank you for your post.

[baldyeti]

If you are not using "kdeconnect" (to access an android smartphone) you may try uninstalling it.

[DMLinux]

If you are not using "kdeconnect" (to access an android smartphone) you may try uninstalling it.

Done. If that results in not having the error again in a few days, I will post a confirmation.

Thanks for your post!

[DMLinux]

Uninstalling "kdeconnect" did not fix the problem. Is there a way to log the startup each time to maybe find what is causing ksmserver start failure?

[DMLinux]

Could the use of systemd affect this problem? Until yesterday, I always booted to what was the default on the Grub boot menu, not bothering to look at the Advanced Options. Just to see what happens, I switched to systemd via the advanced options menu at the Grub startup, then after booting to the desktop, I made the appropriate change in MX Tools. I have not had the startkde/ksmserver failure since making that change. I am guessing this is not the proper fix for my problem, but it appears to be working. Fingers, toes and eyes crossed.

[DMLinux]

It looks like switching to systemd either fixed my problem, or is supplying a very good work-around. From the MX FAQ:

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/help-files/mx-faqs/

"What’s the deal with MX and systemd? How come there are still systemd packages installed?

Systemd is included in order to allow some important applications to run, but it is not enabled by default. For more information see the Users Manual Section 1.7 and theWiki article."

Maybe I installed one of those "important applications"? Whatever. My laptop is now running correctly. I will leave this post open for a couple weeks, then close it if the "startkde: Could not start ksmserver" error does not return.

[baldyeti]

I'd be curious to hear if you have managed to really get rid of that pesky problem. Even under plain bullseye i still (albeit rather rarely) get the issue.When i tried to search the web for it it seemed to have been present intermittently for a rather long time in KDE, with no clear cause nor resolution. Certainly not a MX quirk anyway.

[DMLinux]

@baldyeti, I fully share your curiosity. That is why I didn't mark it solved. Looking around, I have seen a few posts here and there, mostly with kinda-sorta vague replies, which tells me that if the computer is working OK, it is wise to not shoot oneself in the foot by chasing a bunch of half-baked fixes.

I am aware of the "controversy" that seems to surround systemd. I do not understand it, and I am not going to waste any time trying to understand it. The laptop has not had any problems for just shy of 48 hours. Trust me, I have tried many times rebooting or shutting down just to see if the error would pop up. It seems to be working. That is all that counts.