Graphical session crashes every min or so (Plasma6/sddm issue?)

[tehbrozor (Kevin L Geidel)]

Hello all,

I’ve got a fresh install of Rock 6.0 (Vanadium) on my Lenovo Legion. The live os ran fine, install went fine and boots just fine. However, my graphical session will crash anywhere between 30 seconds and a few mins- I get logged out and land back on the login screen. I’ve found a number of threads (all currently closed) and will share what I’ve tried so far after the relevant specs…

(NOTE: I am unable to run these commands from a typical session- I crash to quickly. As many of the cited threads suggest, I am able to run- without issue- by going into a non-graphical tty and running startx /usr/bin/startplasma-x11. So some of the commands may have different output. For example echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE outputs tty whereas when I try to login directly I am pretty sure it was x11.)

Requirements:
I have searched the forum for my issue (findings below)
I have checked the Resources
I have reviewed the Wiki
I have read the the Release Notes and Errata

OpenMandriva Lx version:

OpenMandriva Lx release 6.0 (Vanadium) Rock for x86_64

$ uname -r
6.14.2-desktop-3omv2590

Desktop environment:

$ echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
KDE

$ inxi -G
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 630 driver: i915 v: kernel
Device-2: NVIDIA GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] driver: nvidia
v: 575.51.02
Device-3: Chicony EasyCamera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
Display: unspecified server: X.org v: 1.21.1.18 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,kms_swrast,nouveau,nvidia,swrast
platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 575.51.02
renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 with Max-Q Design/PCIe/SSE2
API: Vulkan v: 1.4.312 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib
Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: kscreen-console
gpu: nvidia-smi x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

Description of the issue:
Something graphical seems to crash within a few mins of a new session. I get logged out and land back on the login screen (is this the “greeter?”) The issue is exactly as described in this thread:

Session crashes (wayland and x11)

Hello, Requirements: I have Searched the forum for my issue and found nothing related or helpful I have checked the Resources category (Resources Index) I have reviewed the Wiki for relevant information I have read the the Release Notes and Errata OpenMandriva Lx version: 25.04 Rome Desktop environment (KDE, LXQT…): KDE, Gnome, Hyprland, i3, sway, qtile, cosmic, niri. Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant): when i try to login from the sddm, each and every session bu…

This was resolved by using a different desktop environment (I think? If I am understanding it right?) I would like to try and resolve this using whatever this shipped with- it’s so cool! (and I want to branch out, I think i’ve only ever used gnome.)

Unless I am mistaken, I am using Nvidia integrated graphics.

$ lspci | glspci | grep -E “VGA|3D|Display”
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 630 (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] (rev a1)

Several threads recommended using Nvidia drivers. I installed them via the welcome screen and I believe that took effect:

$ nvidia-smi
Wed Oct 1 22:26:11 2025
±----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 575.51.02 Driver Version: 575.51.02 CUDA Version: 12.9 |
|-----------------------------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 … Off | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |
| N/A 47C P5 6W / 60W | 475MiB / 6144MiB | 2% Default |
| | | N/A |
±----------------------------------------±-----------------------±---------------------+

(NOTE: After doing this, the welcome screen no longer renders. Its a pure black screen, even running my own graphical session via tty > startx.)

This thread was resolved while using Nvidia drivers:

Desktop environment constant crashes with installed nvidia driver

Hello, Requirements: I have Searched the forum for my issue and found nothing related or helpful I have checked the Resources category (Resources Index) I have reviewed the Wiki for relevant information I have read the the Release Notes and Errata OpenMandriva Lx version: Rome 25.06, x11 Desktop environment (KDE, LXQT…): KDE Description of the issue (screenshots if relevant): sudo dnf install nvidia then after restart there might black screen with blinking cursor after a few sec…

However, they accomplished this by replacing plasma6-sddm with lightdm. I did try that, it looked very weird. Even once logged in it looked like I was in a “safe mode” (a la M$ Windows.) Everything was very blocky. Maybe there was more tinkering to do? Maybe I did something wrong? This is all so sleek and cool- I am interested in trying to get this (or something better) working as is.

In the journalctl snippets I will include below I see issues with sddm and sddm-helper. There was a thread in which this was also noted:

SDDM or Plasma6 desktop don't start

Thanks for providing those logs, very helpful. Of course it is not the Plasma6 desktop crashing the desktop is not starting or it may be something right before the desktop like sddm or systemd or something in the dual graphics setup that is not being handled correctly. Those all remain true for LXQt. In your journal log sddm-helper-start-x11user looks very unhappy. A first guess: 2 things you could try, they won’t hurt anything: Login with Console Mode and run: sudo systemctl enable sddm.s…

The fix here involved “de-syncing” repos in dnf with --allowerasing. I did try this. I have (after this and the lightdm experiments) since reinstalled Rock to start nice and fresh. However, those repo tweaks (–nodeps, --refresh, --allowerasing, etc) did not stop the issue.

Relevant informations (hardware involved, software version, logs or output…):

I am not using a second monitor, only the laptop display.

Following the advice from the other thread and some of my own rooting around I found that sddm-helper is upset about something (not sure if this is related…)

$ sudo systemctl status sddm
○ sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/service.d
└─10-timeout-abort.conf
Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2025-09-30 20:58:42 EDT; 1 day 1h ago
Duration: 16min 24.918s
Invocation: 02014c6238f845f9823537e15593bef3
Docs: man:sddm(1)
man:sddm.conf(5)
Main PID: 892 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Mem peak: 41.9M
CPU: 1.243s

Sep 30 20:57:09 spica kwalletd6[14383]: Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
Sep 30 20:58:06 spica sddm[892]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:58:06 spica sddm-helper[14929]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:58:06 spica sddm-helper[14929]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” "/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp>
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica sddm[892]: Signal received: SIGTERM
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica systemd[1]: Stopping sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager…
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica sddm[892]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 255
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica systemd[1]: sddm.service: Deactivated successfully.
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica systemd[1]: Stopped sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager.
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica systemd[1]: sddm.service: Consumed 1.243s CPU time, 41.9M memory peak.

Here is more from journalctl:

$ sudo journalctl -u sddm | grep -iE “error|failed|warning|sddm-helper”
Sep 30 19:59:58 spica sddm-helper[849]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 19:59:58 spica sddm-helper[849]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sd
dm–OOivYz --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:00:20 spica sddm-helper[952]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Sep 30 20:00:20 spica sddm-helper[952]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Sep 30 20:00:20 spica sddm-helper[952]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 30 20:00:20 spica sddm-helper[958]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /tmp/kwallet5_kevin.socket
Sep 30 20:00:20 spica sddm-helper[952]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user kevin(uid=1001) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:00:20 spica sddm-helper[952]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/share/X11/xdm/Xsession "/usr/bin/sta
rtplasma-x11"”
Sep 30 20:01:50 spica kwalletd6[959]: The X11 connection broke (error 1). Did the X11 server die?
Sep 30 20:01:50 spica sddm[847]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:01:50 spica sddm-helper[1753]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:01:50 spica sddm-helper[1753]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/s
ddm–pIivYI --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:02:25 spica sddm[847]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:02:25 spica sddm-helper[2063]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:02:25 spica sddm-helper[2063]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/s
ddm–bKCaZR --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:02:36 spica sddm-helper[2109]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Sep 30 20:02:36 spica sddm-helper[2109]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Sep 30 20:02:36 spica sddm-helper[2109]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 30 20:02:36 spica sddm-helper[2115]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /tmp/kwallet5_kevin.socket
Sep 30 20:02:36 spica sddm-helper[2109]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user kevin(uid=1001) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:02:36 spica sddm-helper[2109]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/share/X11/xdm/Xsession "/usr/bin/xt
erm"”
Sep 30 20:04:06 spica sddm[847]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:04:06 spica sddm-helper[2265]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:04:07 spica sddm-helper[2265]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/s
ddm–BLzVxr --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:04:42 spica sddm[847]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:04:42 spica sddm-helper[2347]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:04:42 spica sddm-helper[2347]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/s
ddm–cSYnIm --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:04:42 spica sddm-helper[2347]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session closed for user sddm
Sep 30 20:05:54 spica sddm-helper[863]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:05:54 spica sddm-helper[863]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sd
dm–HwXQaP --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:07:52 spica sddm[859]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 255
Sep 30 20:42:17 spica sddm-helper[896]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:42:18 spica sddm-helper[896]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sd
dm–BfvdXn --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:42:31 spica sddm-helper[981]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Sep 30 20:42:31 spica sddm-helper[981]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Sep 30 20:42:31 spica sddm-helper[981]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 30 20:42:31 spica sddm-helper[987]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /tmp/kwallet5_kevin.socket
Sep 30 20:42:31 spica sddm-helper[981]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user kevin(uid=1001) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:42:31 spica sddm-helper[981]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/share/X11/xdm/Xsession "/usr/bin/sta
rtplasma-x11"”
Sep 30 20:53:09 spica sddm-helper[12828]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:53:09 spica sddm-helper[12828]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/
sddm–wjgjXZ --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:53:18 spica sddm-helper[12895]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Sep 30 20:53:18 spica sddm-helper[12895]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Sep 30 20:53:18 spica sddm-helper[12895]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 30 20:53:18 spica sddm-helper[12901]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /tmp/kwallet5_kevin.socket
Sep 30 20:53:18 spica sddm-helper[12895]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user kevin(uid=1001) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:53:18 spica sddm-helper[12895]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/share/X11/xdm/Xsession "/usr/bin/s
tartplasma-x11"”
Sep 30 20:54:48 spica sddm[892]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:54:48 spica sddm-helper[13588]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:54:48 spica sddm-helper[13588]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/
sddm–MBpURm --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:54:57 spica sddm-helper[13691]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Sep 30 20:54:57 spica sddm-helper[13691]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Sep 30 20:54:57 spica sddm-helper[13691]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 30 20:54:57 spica sddm-helper[13697]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /tmp/kwallet5_kevin.socket
Sep 30 20:54:57 spica sddm-helper[13691]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user kevin(uid=1001) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:54:57 spica sddm-helper[13691]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/share/X11/xdm/Xsession "/usr/bin/s
tartplasma-x11"”
Sep 30 20:55:30 spica kwalletd6[13698]: Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
Sep 30 20:56:27 spica sddm[892]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:56:27 spica sddm-helper[14277]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:56:27 spica sddm-helper[14277]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/
sddm–mthhxr --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:56:36 spica sddm-helper[14376]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Sep 30 20:56:36 spica sddm-helper[14376]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Sep 30 20:56:36 spica sddm-helper[14376]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 30 20:56:36 spica sddm-helper[14382]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /tmp/kwallet5_kevin.socket
Sep 30 20:56:36 spica sddm-helper[14376]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user kevin(uid=1001) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:56:36 spica sddm-helper[14376]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/share/X11/xdm/Xsession "/usr/bin/s
tartplasma-x11"”
Sep 30 20:57:09 spica kwalletd6[14383]: Qt: Session management error: Could not open network socket
Sep 30 20:58:06 spica sddm[892]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 2
Sep 30 20:58:06 spica sddm-helper[14929]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=104) by (uid=0)
Sep 30 20:58:06 spica sddm-helper[14929]: Starting X11 session: “/usr/bin/X -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3” “/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/
sddm–QIXzCz --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze”
Sep 30 20:58:42 spica sddm[892]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 255

I am an intermediate linux user at best and the machines I have the most familiarity with are the headless EC2s I use at work so graphical issues are a little out of my depth. However, I am excited to try and learn more about it and the distro is super neat so far (dolphin, for example, is a super cool file manager! Where has this been all my life?!) So I really appreciate any help or advice you may be able to provide while I sort this out!

Thank you!

(Let me know what other information I can provide to shed light on this.)

[Hum_Had]

So i got a notification since you mentioned my issue above, i simply did a:

sudo dnf install ly
sudo systemctl disable sddm
sudo systemctl enable ly
sudo dnf remove sddm

and I am happy with my result : D

[tehbrozor (Kevin L Geidel)]

Yes, this will work just fine. ly is very neat and seems quite acceptable as an sddm replacement for me, thank you @Hum_Had !

I’m sure lightdm has its perks too (I may have also just botched the install somehow) but I am happy with this.

My service was called sddm but the package was called plasma6-sddm so for any new linux folk, if your system is like mine Ill post the following tweak

sudo dnf install ly
sudo systemctl disable sddm
sudo systemctl enable ly
sudo dnf remove plasma6-sddm

Thank you again Hum_Had, I’d mark your post as the solution but I don’t appear to have the button to do so (I also can’t seem to edit my title to mark as solved. I’m not above looking right at it and not seeing it but if it is here it is eluding me.) I’ll keep trying to get that marked done.

[Hum_Had]

@tehbrozor

I’m sure lightdm has its perks too (I may have also just botched the install somehow) but I am happy with this.

the problem with lightdm afaik is that it only supports x-sessions, since i am maining hyprland on my laptop that was no option.

---

nice that it worked for you, have fun! :]