Plasma desktop shell closed unexpectedly

[RegionX]

I was running Mint 13 KDE 4.9 and everything was going fine. I was promoted that there were updates and proceeded to install them through the update manager. At some stage it asked me which display manager I would like to use and to be honest I'm not 100% sure which one I selected, I just thought "Cool, new display manager, where do I sign?" Anyway I went with the one that the upgrade wanted to use or something to that effect. I think it was KDM.

Thereafter I my login manager changed somehow and I now have to type my username in every time. Upon logging in the screen flashes black for a second and the cursor becomes a white X then back to normal. Now when I watch videos the desktop crashes, everything runs except there are no panels and the desktop is black.

I have since tried changing to lightdm which didn't help have have done dist-upgrade and have currently got KDE 4.9.1. I get a crash report every time I switch my computer on and although sometimes the desktop revives itself, the majority of the time I am stuck using ALT-F2 to get stuff done. Not cool...

What can I do (bearing in mind I'm a noob)?

[RegionX]

After looking around it looks like a lot of people have had this bug but I cant find any solutions. Consider this a bump.

[RegionX]

It seems to be worse when using Chrome so I've switched to Firefox. I get the feeling I have been too specific in stating my problem and it is doubtful someone has had the exact same experience but the crux of the matter is that when streaming video online the desktop crashes.

[homerscousin]

No, not too specific, not specific enough. We don't even know your hardware. Big difference from a 6 year old laptop with AMD graphics and a brand new Intel 6 core with 2 or 3 high end Nvidia cards. Typing lshw at a terminal will list your hardware. That's a start.

[RegionX]

Okay well it is still happening. More specifically it happens with almost(sometimes I get lucky) any video and it does not have to be full screen. Youtube seems to allow it to refresh the desktop most of the time though. I just keep working using keyboard shortcuts and don;t get my desktop till I reboot. I think this is all the pertinent info:

Code: Select all

WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
cameron-aspire-3820       
    description: Computer
    width: 64 bits
    capabilities: vsyscall32
  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       physical id: 0
     *-memory
          description: System memory
          physical id: 0
          size: 3627MiB
     *-cpu
          product: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU       M 370  @ 2.40GHz
          vendor: Intel Corp.
          physical id: 1
          bus info: cpu@0
          size: 933MHz
          capacity: 933MHz
          width: 64 bits
          capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp x86-64 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm arat dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid cpufreq
     *-pci:0
          description: Host bridge
          product: Core Processor DRAM Controller
          vendor: Intel Corporation
          physical id: 100
          bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
          version: 18
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 33MHz
          configuration: driver=agpgart-intel
          resources: irq:0
        *-display
             description: VGA compatible controller
             product: Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 2
             bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
             version: 18                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
             width: 64 bits                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
             clock: 33MHz                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
             capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom                                                                                                                                                                                                             
             configuration: driver=i915 latency=0                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
             resources: irq:41 memory:f0000000-f03fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:1800(size=8)

[RegionX]

I am officially embarressed... I first mentioned this problem on Oct 1st. I have since been living with the problem, waiting till I have time to fix it. I just wrote a long more detailed explanation of how and when it crashes only to realise I have not tried any other browsers. I've only been using Chrome and upon trying Firefox I see that it works perfectly.

If anyone knows what the problem could be seeing as it the desktop crashes when watching videos in Chrome but not in Firefox please let me know. Also Chromium says flash player is out of date when trying to watch a video.

I would prefer to use Chrome if possible.