How to restart kwin when it is hung?

Question

kwin occasionally hangs, which looks like the system not responding to mouse clicks or key presses - although the mouse pointer still moves when you move the mouse!

score 45 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 10 '13 at 23:29

45

As described in the official Kwin documentation, a good way to go would be to try this either on a running terminal application or on a virtual console (i.e.: Ctrl+Alt+F1), :

DISPLAY=:0 kwin --replace

edited Oct 10 '13 at 23:29

Waldir Leoncio

1,925

answered Oct 10 '13 at 21:15

Ntropia

551

score 6 · Answer 2 · 2018-07-12T15:33:01.063

In later Kubuntu/Plasma 5 kwin still hangs/crashes (especially with Intel display drivers it seems), but can be more easily restarted: just run in krunner - Alt-Space, or Alt-F2: kwin --replace

Or, create a new custom shortcut for that: e.g. Trigger: Meta+K, Action, Command/URL: kwin --replace.

In this way kwin can be restarted with just the Meta-K shortcut.

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 10 '13 at 23:57

6

Similar to Robin Green's answer, but this does not require a terminal window to be open already. Instead, specify the display in which to start kwin from tty1. Hence,

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to access a terminal. Log in.

Type killall kwin. Then, type in DISPLAY=:0 kwin.

Press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to change back to your primary display.

edited Oct 10 '13 at 23:57

Waldir Leoncio

1,925

answered Dec 27 '12 at 01:29

Sparhawk

6,969

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 06 '12 at 15:13

Press Ctrl+Alt+F1. Log in. Type killall kwin.

Press Ctrl+Alt+F7.

Quit all open applications until a terminal becomes visible. Hover the mouse over the terminal application. Type kwin &.

What's that, no terminal application open? Tough - you'll just have to reboot.

Alberto Salvia Novella · Answer 5 · 2021-04-07T21:21:49.603

2

Shortcuts

krunner: Alt+F2
Or: tty [number]: Ctrl+Alt+F[number]

Command

setsid kwin_x11 --replace &

Legend

setsid: creates a new session, so if the terminal is closed kwin still runs.
kwin_x11: only on x11, as in wayland the window manager holds the hole session (no way to restart without closing everything).
--replace: kills any running kwin before launching a new instance.
&: as a separate process.

edited Apr 07 '21 at 21:21

answered Apr 07 '21 at 20:57

Alberto Salvia Novella

772

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 10 '13 at 23:29

1

This actually works. It is a nasty bug but at least I can recover now.

In my case, there is no need to go back to the console login using ctrl+alt+f2 but using alt+f2 I can simply type killall plasma-desktop plasma-desktop and then using alt+f2 again,

I can run plasma-desktop. Could also be used in a script of course. This way I get back my mouse and I will not lose any work.

edited Oct 10 '13 at 23:29

Seth

59,332

answered Nov 18 '12 at 10:53

Erik Brakkee

29

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 25 '21 at 08:47

0

If restarting kwin does not help (or if e.g. you have just lost the start menu), it may be plasma. In this case plasmashell is the one to run as of KDE 5.21 (replacing the old plasma-desktop).

answered Feb 25 '21 at 08:47

eddygeek

1,839

score -1 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 16 '13 at 17:54

-1

Just do:

killall plasma-desktop
plasma-desktop &

you could have it all in a bash script in case you need it more times,

recoverkde.sh:

killall plasma-desktop
plasma-desktop &

edited Jun 16 '13 at 17:54

guntbert

13,475

answered Nov 07 '12 at 06:18

Korcia

4,745

How to restart kwin when it is hung?

8 Answers8

Shortcuts

Command

Legend

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