[kde-linux] Starting up KDE hangs with a black desktop and movable mouse cursor.

[Phillip Pi]

Someone told me to try adding echoes in my /usr/sbin/startkde script 
like this:

# finally, give the session control to the session manager
# see kdebase/ksmserver for the description of the rest of the startup sequence
# if the KDEWM environment variable has been set, then it will be used as KDE's
# window manager instead of kwin.
# if KDEWM is not set, ksmserver will ensure kwin is started.
# kwrapper is used to reduce startup time and memory usage
# kwrapper does not return usefull error codes such as the exit code of ksmserver.
# We only check for 255 which means that the ksmserver process could not be
# started, any problems thereafter, e.g. ksmserver failing to initialize,
# will remain undetected.
test -n "$KDEWM" && KDEWM="--windowmanager $KDEWM"
echo "test wm" >> /home/ant/download/log.txt

kwrapper ksmserver $KDEWM
echo "kwrapper ksmserver" >> /home/ant/download/log.txt
if test $? -eq 255; then
  # Startup error
  echo 'startkde: Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation.'  1>&2
  xmessage -geometry 500x100 "Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation."
  echo "xmessage" >> /home/ant/download/log.txt
fi


I got "test wm" in log.txt, but nothing after it. It looks like the hang 
happens with kwrapper ksmserver section. I tried to view kwrapper and 
ksmserver files, but they are binaries. Now, I am stuck but at least we 
can see where it is hanging now. :(


On Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 06:15:51PM -0800, Phillip Pi wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> Two days ago on my home Debian system, I exited KDE v3.5.x (not sure
> exactly what version I have) and X back to console/text mode and
> restarted it (startx) but now I get a hang. I see a black desktop/GUI/X
> with a movable mouse cursor after seeing NVIDIA logo and an one second
> gray desktop. I have to use ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X to get out of
> it.
> 
> I did some investigations and experiments as well. You can see the logs,
> results, etc. in
> http://www.kde-forum.org/artikel/17919/Starting-up-KDE-hangs-with-a-black-desktop-and-mov.html
> thread since they would be too much to post in here.
> 
> Thank you in advance. :)
> -- 
> "One day he sprained an ankle rather than crush an ant." --Les 
> Miserables
>   /\___/\
>  / /\ /\ \       Phillip/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
> | |o   o| |         Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
>    \ _ /                 E-mail: philpi at earthlink.net or ant at zimage.com
>     ( )

-- 
"One day he sprained an ankle rather than crush an ant." --Les 
Miserables
  /\___/\
 / /\ /\ \       Phillip/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o   o| |         Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
   \ _ /                 E-mail: philpi at earthlink.net or ant at zimage.com
    ( )