KDE 4.4 No Login / Black screen

[Bloemetjesgordijn]

Hi,

I just upgraded to 4.4 (on Kubuntu 9.10). Install went fine, only after reboot I had an issue=> No login screen (black screen)

I have googled around and found a possible solution:
delete .kde4 and .config directory http://forums.opensuse.org/pre-release- ... creen.html

I am a bit reluctant to delete folders.

So the question is....does anybody have a better solution.

Thx

Bloemetjesgordijn

[urlacher3292]

I'm having the same problem, but if I boot into recovery mode and select resume, I can login and start the kdm from the command line. From here everything seems to work fine but I would like a better fix.

[ComputerGeek31618]

Don't know if I should post a new thread or not, since I have a slightly related KDE SC 4.4 problem. (...on two computers at once. Yeah, I was so eager to try 4.4 that I sent two machines into the upgrade without testing on one first; I have my reward.)

My computers have Kubuntu 9.10 with KDE 4.3.5. I tried to install KDE 4.4 from the ppa backports using KPackageKit. It seemed to want to upgrade packages in stages, and klipper wouldn't install (some sort of conflict with the old version of another package that was "blocked" from upgrading). On my desktop, I upgraded everything but klipper. I was able to finish, but when I logged in, the plasma desktop would die and the screen would go black. Alt+F2, desktop effects, and applications could still run. By using apt-get install to install the "held back" upgrades (and satisfy the klipper conflict), everything came undone. On my laptop, I skipped ahead straight to the undone state somehow.

When I boot up normally, when the progress bar on the Kubuntu splash is 3/4 done, the screen goes into an unusual state. The resolution is very low. There is a blinking underscore " _ " in the top left. White blocks that could be corrupt nonprinting ASCII characters are scattered over the screen. Blinking on and off are more of these broken blocks in various colors in the spaces not used by the white ones. There is a KDE pointer arrow that you can move around the screen.

On my laptop, recovery booting into "root prompt with networking" lets me access apt-get, but it says everything's fine and upgraded. Aptitude (which I just now started to figure out) won't let me downgrade packages because of a tangled web of dependencies.

I tried using a LiveCD to edit /etc/apt/sources.list and remove the kubuntu ppa backports entry. I'm assuming that that will make apt think that the main packages are the latest and will let me downgrade automatically. I haven't been able to move my desktop PC downstairs to an ethernet connection (to boot into recovery mode with networking) to to try it yet. My laptop's sources.list file seems to be hiding the entry from me, and now I've gotten aptitude into some sort of dependency nightmare.

Sorry for the long post, but I couldn't find anyone with this problem in a google or ubuntuforums search. Does anyone have an idea how I can get back to 4.3? (Has anyone at all been able to upgrade to 4.4 anyway?)

[kovi]

A workaround that works for me is that after a reboot I press ESC couple of times in the moment I see kubuntu sign with a progress bar.

[MoeNeigh]

I'm having the same problem, but if I boot into recovery mode and select resume, I can login and start the kdm from the command line. From here everything seems to work fine but I would like a better fix.

Same deal, everything seems to work logging in that way (recovery mode) except the sound. Kde and phonon? say none of my sound drivers work -- but they worked before.

[ComputerGeek31618]

I can also boot into recovery mode on my desktop and run kdm from the command line. Although this takes me to the login screen just fine, my desktop after logging on is black. I can use the Alt+F2 to launch programs, but I have no desktop, no plasma, no taskbar, no anything. I've googled around, and I think it may have something to do with plasma not being started. I've also heard stuff about deleting a .kde4 folder to solve upgrade problems. Any suggestions as to what I need to be doing?

EDIT:

I renamed my .kde folder .kdeOLDVERSION, so it would make a new .kde folder. This was the solution to other black screen on 4.4 situations in other distros, but it didn't work for me. I'm still googling for other solutions.

[urlacher3292]

Same deal, everything seems to work logging in that way (recovery mode) except the sound. Kde and phonon? say none of my sound drivers work -- but they worked before.

We're definitly having the same problem. My sound doesn't work any more either, even though they always have before.

[MoeNeigh]

We're definitly having the same problem. My sound doesn't work any more either, even though they always have before.

I got my sound working again by adding the audio group to my user privileges in the user manager. I don't think I should have had to do that, but the sound returned after I did that and logged out and back in.

[urlacher3292]

I got my sound working again by adding the audio group to my user privileges in the user manager. I don't think I should have had to do that, but the sound returned after I did that and logged out and back in.

Thanks for the tip.

[DeDood]

I have had tested KDE 4.4 on my laptop first (which has an Intel graphics card) and all seemed to work fine (except for the netbook workspace). On my desktop computer however I have the same probleme as ComputerGeek31618 with the scrambled screen after the Kubuntu spalsh. My desktop has a NVidia graphics card so maybe that's the problem.

I noticed that switching between Ctrl-Alt-F7 and Ctrl-Alt-F8 a few times made the login screen appear and I coold start working in KDE. However, after a reboot I had to do the Ctrl-Alt-F7 Ctrl-Alt-F8 trick again.
It seems to mee that it are the Console screens that are scrambled and not KDE itself. Maybe KDE changes the resolution setting for the consoles or something.

Anyone an idea how to overcome this problem permanently.