This system was fine, running Slackware64 14.1, with Steam running under wine playing Portal2 just fine. NVIDIA GeForce GT630 card (DVI-D-0), Samsung P2370HD monitor. About 2 weeks ago, the user tried to launch Steam's Deus Ex, which had been unused for some time due to being unreliable. Deux Ex failed to launch, the system snarled up with a bad display resolution, and the user tried to get it back to a normal display. The user's account would not launch KDE again - the monitor declares No Signal. (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace retreats to the launch window and normal video output.) We found a problem with sda3 (/usr) and fixed it with fsck. We set up a second user account, which launches KDE fine. We have tried a number of changes (see the end of this post) based on extensive internet research.
Here's the current xorg.conf:
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 340.17 (buildmeister@swio-display-x64-rhel04-03) Tue Jun 3 21:34:24 PDT 2014
# modified by Nick & Kate Jan 2015
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection
# Section "ServerFlags" (we tried this, no change)
# Option "AIGLX" "off"
# EndSection
Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled"
...
FontPath "/usr/lib64/X11/fonts/TTF/"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Samsung"
ModelName "P2370HD"
HorizSync 60
VertRefresh 60
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
# ModelName "GeForce GT 630" (just a comment)
# Option "AccelMethod" "uxa" (tried, no change)
# BusID "PCI:1:0:0" (tried, no change)
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1920 1080
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1080"
EndSubSection
EndSection

*Once*, right after we upgraded the NVIDIA driver, KDE launched briefly, but the desktops appeared to have lost most of their configuration. After exit, it would not launch again, not even right after re-installing the same NVIDIA driver. (We did include the 32bit compatibility in both installs.)

I have compared the /var/log/Xorg.0.log from unsuccessful and successful KDE launches. Both include (edited for brevity):
X.Org X Server 1.14.3 Release Date: 2013-09-12
[] X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[] Build Operating System: Slackware 14.1 Slackware Linux Project
[] Current Operating System: Linux <MACHINENAME> 3.10.17 #2 SMP Wed Oct 23 16:34:38 CDT 2013 x86_64
[] Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=802 vt.default_utf8=0
[] (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
[] (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
[] (==) ModulePath set to "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
[] (II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card0)
[] (--) PCI:*(0:1:0:0) 10de:1284:1043:8461 rev 161, Mem @ 0xfa000000/16777216, 0xf0000000/134217728, 0xf8000000/33554432, I/O @ 0x0000e000/128, BIOS @ 0x????????/524288
[] (II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)
[] (II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
[] compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
[] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
[] (II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
[] compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
[] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[] (II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver 346.22 Tue Dec 2 09:58:48 PST 2014
[] (II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
[] (--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on GeForce GT 630 at PCI:1:0:0
[] (--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (DFP-0) (boot, connected)
[] (--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (DFP-0): Internal TMDS
[] (II) NVIDIA(0): Validated MetaModes:
[] (**) NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size configured to be 1920 x 1080
[] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "DFP-0:1920x1080"
[] (II) NVIDIA(0): [DRI2] Setup complete
[] (--) RandR disabled

In the working configuration, this repeats four times:
(**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[] (**) NVIDIA(0): device Samsung SyncMaster (DFP-0) (Using EDID frequencies
[] (**) NVIDIA(0): has been enabled on all display devices.)

In the launch failure, it repeats only two times, and then says:
[ 14098.087] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "NULL"
[ 14102.022] (II) Server zapped. Shutting down.
Then they both have the same shutdown messages.

Things we have tried:
We have messed with xorg.conf in various ways. The new account happily launches KDE, the old account goes to No Signal on the monitor. Launch time is variable, and sometimes we see the NVIDIA logo before the result, but that is normal behavior.
We generated new plasma-desktop-* and ksmserverrc files in /home/user/.kde/share/config/ .
We generated a new /home/user/.Xauthority and /tmp/kde-user .
We reinstalled KDE.
We have cleared nepomuk's repository. No baloo files found.
/var/tmp has plenty of space and no huge files.
We seem to have xrandr but not kscreen.
We have compared the environment variables of the two accounts, which seem equivalent.
We have tried swapping in /home/user/.kde/share/config/kwinrc from the working account. echo $DISPLAY on either account returns a null string.
root can run kdm, the new account can log in, the old one can't, even using the "safe" settings.

It would be nice to not have to rebuild the KDE environment from scratch - setting it up the comfortable way it was took many hours. Does anyone recognize how to fix this installation, or have a suggestion for something to check?

This is just a shot in the dark but the only thing I know of that destroys a User's KDE install is running a graphic program as root within a User login. KDE specifically states that if one wants to launch a graphic program as root in a User account, kdesu MUST be used or permissions will be trashed in that User's profile.

Regarding Deus Ex, I assume you mean the Human Revolution release. Graphics issues there are well known and belong to and are fixed in Wine configuration, not in Xorg. Other than requiring "windowed mode" Deus Ex: Human Revolution works flawlessly for me even when I drag window size to near full screen.

Ours is the original Deus Ex, Game of the Year Edition. Steam and wine are only used by this particular user account, and never launched by root.

However, I would like to check on the issues you mention. Where is the user's Profile located? Would I check permissions with
find ~ ! -user ${USER}
which I found at
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/comm...ks-smart-geeks

Thanks for your post.

There shouldn't be any files in your user home that aren't owned by the user anyway.
I normally just login as root from tty1 and "chown -R user1:users /home/user1" where user1 is the account name.

1 members found this post helpful.

*** BREAKING NEWS BELOW - MOSTLY SOLVED ***

I checked for files with inappropriate ownership in my user's directories with
find ~ ! -user ${USER}
and no files were found. (I edited my post above to the correct command so as to not steer future searchers wrong.)

I found a good description of xorg.config's Section "Device" Options in Appendix B. of
/usr/doc/NVIDIA_GLX_1.0/README.txt
I added
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP"
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP-0"
to /etc/X11/xorg.conf - to override detected monitors, and filter detected devices to my wanted one.
The new account still launches happily, the old account still goes to "No Signal" on the monitor. (aka black screen no picture no image no video for searchers)

I don't think it's a nouveau blacklist issue, because the two accounts share their X configuration. Neither has an .xinitrc , both have .screenrc and .nvidia-settings-rc . The dates on the problem account's .screenrc and .nvidia-settings-rc are long before the trouble started. Also checked: /etc/default/grub does not include "nomodeset".

*** HERE'S THE BIG NEWS ***

I was wrong - kscreen is apparently involved.

user@MACHINENAME:~/.kde/share/apps/kscreen$ cat ffc63669bdc7da792d224395b54cdcb0
[ { "enabled" : true, "id" : "f1ac95c709a439d9ca94b8c86a68e7b2", "metadata" : {
"fullname" : "xrandr-SyncMaster-H1AK500000", "name" : "DVI-D-0" }, "mode" : { "refresh" : 60.0, "size" : { "height" : 1080, "width" : 1920 } }, "pos" : { "x" :
0, "y" : 0 }, "primary" : true, "rotation" : 49 } ]

...see the "49" at the end? Change it to "1" and startx launches KDE with a working monitor. Or, delete the whole file and it will be recreated correctly with a 1, and work.

The user's KDE configuration is only partly back - the 8 desktops have lost their wallpaper, at least - but startx now does not trigger the monitor to say "No Signal", and then go to blank screen sleep.

I figured this out by doing a
~$ ls -Ral > /mnt/tmp/userdir.txt
for each user to a USB flash drive, then using my favorite compare tool (XyWrite) on another machine to compare the lists of files present in the two home directories, and to search for files in the old account dated when the trouble started.

*** PERSEVERANCE FURTHERS ***

If the new account works properly, it's a specific user fault.
First thing I would look is ~/.kde/share/config/startupconfig and ~/.kde/share/config/krandrrc
Maybe even rename ~/.kde into ~/.kde.old just to check if default kde configuration works for that user.

1 members found this post helpful.