Bug 463413

Summary:	Plasma terminates after clicking the close button of any window or dialogue from the process when hanging
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	ryu.ketsueki
Component:	generic-crash	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	crash	CC:	akselmo, kde, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	5.26.4
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description ryu.ketsueki 2022-12-23 23:36:06 UTC

I'm not sure if this is related to the window manager or a task manager of sorts but I noticed that whenever I close a notification when Plasma happens to hang, it terminates. It also happens if I close Desktop Folder Settings (where I apply wallpapers) or the settings for a plasmoid.

While this behavior happens with any application that happens to hang and I press the close button on the titlebar, it is especially infuriating when it happens with Plasmashell itself, because all panels and icons disappear and I have to wait for it to restart on its own or, if the user is tech savvy enough, restart it from KRunner.

Processes to hang is normal and should be expected in any machine. Sometimes they hang for a fraction of a second, sometimes for a few seconds, depends on how busy the CPU is. So, for Plasmashell, this is especially a problem.

So my suggestion is, don't allow Plasmashell to terminate if it hangs and the user happens to click on a close button somewhere. Maybe make it a special rule that Plasmashell can't be closed on user input or give higher priority so Plasmashell won't hang as often in low end computers.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2023-01-06 19:57:58 UTC

> Processes to hang is normal
Uhh, it shouldn't be! This is definitely not normal on my system.

If you close a notification while Plasma is hanging and it terminates, that's a bug and not expected behavior. Can you get a backtrace of the crash? See https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Debugging/How_to_create_useful_crash_reports

Comment 2 ryu.ketsueki 2023-01-06 21:38:06 UTC

I tried attaching gdb to the process, as well as starting plasmashell from gdb but in both cases I wasn't given a trace. However, looking on /var/log/messages, I gathered everything I could about what happened:

https://pastebin.com/J3PSpe5H

For when I said it's normal for processes to hang, it may happen if the computer is old. This one runs on a 7th gen Intel Core i3, the 7020U, 12 GB of RAM, running Tumbleweed. My only guess is that if there are processes that require more CPU than plasma, it may cause to hang for a bit and if I happen to close a notification or even the wallpaper chooser, that can happen.

Comment 3 Akseli Lahtinen 2024-05-30 11:09:57 UTC

Has this occurred anymore?

Comment 4 ryu.ketsueki 2024-06-12 12:54:28 UTC

(In reply to Akseli Lahtinen from comment #3)
> Has this occurred anymore?

I haven't experienced this in a while so I'm not sure if it is because plasmashell is fairly more stable and doesn't allow for this issue to be replicated or if it is gone entirely. But it was fairly common to happen as I was removing plasmoids and a notification appeared, which allowed to undo the change. Clicking there would sometimes cause plasmashell to terminate if it happens to hang during the action.