Universal Blue•3mo ago

Plasma shell/Kwin having persistent graphics issues after playing Star Citizen on Wayland+Nvidia

So something really wacky is happening to my system after Star Citizen froze on me. Im running Bazzite KDE with Nvidia on Wayland, using the latest update available. It's like certain parts of the system can't see the graphics driver and kwin is having a fit, even after rebooting multiple times: - Taskbar icons disappear when I mouse over them - KWin crashes when I try to tile windows, icons in kde system settings are offsetting in weird places - The system monitor is falling back to software rendering but the rest of the system seems like it's using the GPU fine in most places - Windows seems to work fine, although it was slow on the load and the bios loading screen was a little glitchy. Destiny 2 ran okay. Is my GPU dying or is this a kwin thing? Or is it some weird setting that I accidentally flipped in the driver? I have tried: - rebooting multiple times, even draining the capacitor - updating, I'm on the latest update. - rolling back, it even happens on the previous version where I wasn't playing SC. Games run fine on Steam Proton, surprisingly. I have not tried SC again out of fear of making things worse. It's seemingly either Kwin or the Plasma shell not working right.

Solution:

This was set to Software. I set it back to OpenGL and it worked.

Jump to solution

15 Replies

wolfyreload•3mo ago

Please run rpm-ostree status - so I can see what version of Bazzite you are running nvidia-smi - to check the version of the driver switcherooctl list - so we can see if you have an Nvidia Optimus setup Try make a new user account and log in as that user. See if the weird issues persist or go away completely just to check that it's not a weird local user config setting. If the issues persist, I'd boot a live USB of something like Pop!_OS then you can see if your issue is a weird KDE issue or the graphics card itself.

Rilic•3mo ago

I'll get back to you on these, thank you! Output of rpm-ostree status:

rilic@phoenix:~$ rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
● ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-nvidia:stable
                   Digest: sha256:c0b501eb928bdecc93e31b1065cd543488045375b533816e214d9a51924e846c
                  Version: 40.20240702.0 (2024-07-02T23:21:59Z)
          LayeredPackages: borgbackup ckb-next kdepim-addons kdepim-runtime libdbusmenu-gtk2 merkuro
                           nextcloud-client nextcloud-client-dolphin podman-remote sunshine

  ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-nvidia:stable
                   Digest: sha256:4fd1be4d126904c7fbff850a08f7d097a88f77f46f0d5db5735cc72a043d4c16
                  Version: 40.20240701.0 (2024-07-02T00:17:13Z)
          LayeredPackages: borgbackup ckb-next kdepim-addons kdepim-runtime libdbusmenu-gtk2 merkuro
                           nextcloud-client nextcloud-client-dolphin podman-remote sunshine

rilic@phoenix:~$ rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
● ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-nvidia:stable
                   Digest: sha256:c0b501eb928bdecc93e31b1065cd543488045375b533816e214d9a51924e846c
                  Version: 40.20240702.0 (2024-07-02T23:21:59Z)
          LayeredPackages: borgbackup ckb-next kdepim-addons kdepim-runtime libdbusmenu-gtk2 merkuro
                           nextcloud-client nextcloud-client-dolphin podman-remote sunshine

  ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-nvidia:stable
                   Digest: sha256:4fd1be4d126904c7fbff850a08f7d097a88f77f46f0d5db5735cc72a043d4c16
                  Version: 40.20240701.0 (2024-07-02T00:17:13Z)
          LayeredPackages: borgbackup ckb-next kdepim-addons kdepim-runtime libdbusmenu-gtk2 merkuro
                           nextcloud-client nextcloud-client-dolphin podman-remote sunshine

Output of nvidia-smi:

rilic@phoenix:~$ nvidia-smi
Fri Jul  5 14:51:18 2024       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 555.58                 Driver Version: 555.58         CUDA Version: 12.5     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 44%   56C    P0             37W /  200W |    1688MiB /   8192MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      5332      G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                         883MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5521      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                             293MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5586      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                            2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5599      G   /usr/libexec/kactivitymanagerd                  2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5604      G   /usr/libexec/org_kde_powerdevil                 2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5948      G   /usr/bin/akonadi_control                        2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6000      G   /usr/bin/akonadi_davgroupware_resource          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6142      G   /usr/bin/nextcloud                              2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6235      G   /usr/bin/kalendarac                             2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6886      G   ...local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      7157      G   ./steamwebhelper                               34MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      7189      G   ...atal,SpareRendererForSitePerProcess         82MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     22479      G   /app/lib/firefox/firefox                      151MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     23825      G   /usr/bin/konsole                                2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     27164      G   /usr/bin/plasma-systemmonitor                   2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     36429      G   ...yOnDemand --variations-seed-version         54MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

rilic@phoenix:~$ nvidia-smi
Fri Jul  5 14:51:18 2024       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 555.58                 Driver Version: 555.58         CUDA Version: 12.5     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 44%   56C    P0             37W /  200W |    1688MiB /   8192MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      5332      G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                         883MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5521      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                             293MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5586      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                            2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5599      G   /usr/libexec/kactivitymanagerd                  2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5604      G   /usr/libexec/org_kde_powerdevil                 2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5948      G   /usr/bin/akonadi_control                        2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6000      G   /usr/bin/akonadi_davgroupware_resource          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6142      G   /usr/bin/nextcloud                              2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6235      G   /usr/bin/kalendarac                             2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6886      G   ...local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      7157      G   ./steamwebhelper                               34MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      7189      G   ...atal,SpareRendererForSitePerProcess         82MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     22479      G   /app/lib/firefox/firefox                      151MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     23825      G   /usr/bin/konsole                                2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     27164      G   /usr/bin/plasma-systemmonitor                   2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     36429      G   ...yOnDemand --variations-seed-version         54MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Output of switcherooctl list:

rilic@phoenix:~$ switcherooctl list
Device: 0
  Name:        NVIDIA Corporation GP104 [GeForce GTX 1080]
  Default:     yes
  Discrete:    yes
  Environment: __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only

rilic@phoenix:~$ switcherooctl list
Device: 0
  Name:        NVIDIA Corporation GP104 [GeForce GTX 1080]
  Default:     yes
  Discrete:    yes
  Environment: __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only

Okay, making a new user reveals it's only happening when Im logged in as rilic. That narrows it down a lot Setting all my desktop effects and kwin scripts back to default has no affect, sadly Arggg, I can't think of what it could be! I'm stumped

wolfyreload•3mo ago

We one step closer at least. One big plus is that we know that your graphics card is alright and it's just a config issue. I'd start by removing your hidden .cache folder (you need to press CTRL+H to show hidden files) in your home directory If that doesn't work there are a bunch of Plasma config settings in .config in your home folder

Rilic•3mo ago

Clearing the cache folder didnt work, sadly. Kwin just gave like 10 crash dumps via the KDE crash handler, but didnt actually crash. Im looking at them now, but I dont know anything abot KDE's codebase to understand much of anything kwin_wayland segvaulted, to be specific Like a load of times

Rilic•3mo ago

KWin looks like it's dying. Im looking at KJournald Browser and Im seeing this repeated constantly

Rilic•3mo ago

When I put my mouse in the corner to get the overview, it goes black and shows no windows. It seems to continuously crash over and over... something wild is happening

Rilic•3mo ago

New discovery: alt-tabbing crashes kwin and all running apps. I genuinely have no idea what the hell is going on

wolfyreload•3mo ago

And if the new user, none of this happens? This repeating error is normal. Seems to happen in all KDE systems

Rilic•3mo ago

Yup, new user has nothing wrong I see, next chance I get i'll see if I can filter it out so I can find any more important logs Update on this: I used SaveDesktop to move most of the desktop config from my main user to the test user. The test user now experiences the issue, so I've narrowed it down to whatever files SaveDesktop includes!! It must be a Plasma thing I'm gonna slowly set settings to default in the test user and see which one resolves the issue. This is big Okay, deleting everything in ~/.config and relogging removed the issue. It's a setting in there somewhere. Reapplying the issue to test user so I can troubleshoot I THINK I FOUND THE ISSUE YES I DID, OKAY SO I don't know how this happened, but something set Plasma's rendering to software-only. I did not know there was even a settings GUI for it, but I spotted it in the bottom right corner of the test user's menu bar while combing through config files. SaveDesktop apparently keeps that setting since it's a plasma config setting

Rilic•3mo ago

Solution

Rilic•3mo ago

This was set to Software. I set it back to OpenGL and it worked.

Rilic•3mo ago

Perhaps there's some kind of keybind or automatic failsafe that did it...

Rilic•2mo ago

For a late update to this: someone from the Star Citizen discord said that if Plasma receives too many errors on the graphics backend, it will revert to software rendering. This is hearsay, though, and I havent found any documentation to back this up. But it could be a lead as to the cause.

Potajito•2mo ago

Have you move your config from a while ago? Like many months? There uses to be a bug where opengl wasn't working under some circumstances and it got reverted temporarily to software, at some time it got fixed but I guess the setting stuck

Rilic•2mo ago

This is a fresh Plasma config from a couple weeks ago, so maybe there's still a bug present somewhere ^^

Gaming

Programming

Plasma shell/Kwin having persistent graphics issues after playing Star Citizen on Wayland+Nvidia