Distro: fresh installation of Maui (KDE Neon User Edition). Issue: desktop effects disabled. If I set the compositor to use Xrender instead of OpenGL the effects work. If I switch back to OpenGL the effects stop working (no window shadows, no hot corners etc). Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. System Settings > Hardware > Compositor > Set "OpenGL" instead of Xrender tested the same versions of Plasma (5.7.3) and Frameworks (5.25/5.26) also in Manjaro and everything works.
Moving to KWIn. This works for me and we make no changes to KWin codebase.
Please provide output of glxinfo
Created attachment 101754 [details] glxinfo, opengl2 backend, compositor dead
This bug is consistently reproducible but only when using the proprietary nvidia driver. It does not occur when using the nouveau driver. I have a geforce 210(NV50) card and the recommended proprietary driver for that card is nvidia340xx series. The bug did not occur during plasma/kde 5.8.1 and only appeared after the update to 5.8.2. To rule out the possibility that it might have been an nvidia issue, I rewound the nvidia340xx driver to the version I was using last August (340.96) and it still occurred. (The current nvidia version is 340.98). Note the 340.96 worked fine with 5.7 and 5.8.1. I also tried the current nvdia 370xx version and 304xx. In the past these have worked with that card. But plasma will not instantiate with these versions. (X does start). The message one gets is a popup stating that plasma is unable to start as it could not correctly use OpenGl2(even though the compositor is set to use XRender.) This is probably all just noise, but the information is provided to be complete. Work around is to use the nouveau driver or set the compositer to use XRender which seems to work fine (unless I guess someone is really into 3-D games or something.) glxinfo attached. Generated with it in hosed state, that is with the OpenGl2 backend enabled, proprietary driver, desktop effects not working.
@Stuart: you have a broken driver installation. The popup comes from Plasma and not KWin. Overall that looks like a broken driver. Please contact a support forum on how to fix the driver. @Alex: still waiting for your glxinfo.
@Martin Please read the post (comment 4) again carefully. The second paragraph in the post is probably irrelevant to the issue. The popups are probably due to current incompatibility of the 370xx and 304xx drivers with the specific card. (See first paragraph.) Different 340xx drivers (which is the version recommended by Nvidia as compatible with the card) were tried including one that has worked fine in the past with 5.8.1. I suppose I could rewind to version 5.8.1 and use the current 340.98 driver to definitively confirm that the problem is in the transition from 5.8.1 go 5.8.2, but this is a huge amount of work and time.....too many packages. Please try to boot 5.8.2 with an appropriate proprietary nvidia driver on a machine with nvidia graphics and see what happens when you set the back end to opengl.
Clarification of paragraph 1: When I say the bug is reproducible, what I mean is: 1. Use proprietary Nvidia drive. 2 Boot machine into plasma desktop, with plasma/kwin version 5.8.2. 3. If backend of compositor is set to opengl, desktop effects do not work. 4. If change backend to XRender, desktop effects do work. 5. If change backend back to open gl, effects stop working. This behavior does not occur when using the open source Nouveau driver. Behavior did not occur with 5.8.1 when using the proprietary Nvidia driver. Switching back to an earlier proprietary driver which did work with 5.8.1 does not fix the problem when using 5.8.2.
@Stuart: you are hijacking a bug report. Alex's issue has nothing to do with your issue. I'm not going to respond except this pointing of bug report hijacking.
I am hijacking nothing!. I am reporting the same issue and experiencing and confirming the same behavior that Alex has reported. What I am adding to the discusson is that the bug only occurs when using the proprietary Nvidia driver and does not occur when using the open source Nouveau driver.
and how do you know that Alex is using an NVIDIA driver? We don't have that information and thus we must assume that it's not the same issue and that you are hijacking this bug report. Sorry, but that's experience here: just because it might be related doesn't mean it's related. Especially not if drivers are involved.
Dear Bug Submitter, This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 15 days. Please provide the requested information as soon as possible and set the bug status as REPORTED. Due to regular bug tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDSINFO status with no change in 30 days, the bug will be closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME due to lack of needed information. For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the wiki located here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging If you have already provided the requested information, please set the bug status as REPORTED so that the KDE team knows that the bug is ready to be confirmed. Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!
Dear Bug Submitter, This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 30 days. The bug is now closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME due to lack of needed information. For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the wiki located here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!