I'm using Slackware 13.37 XFCE and since yesterday my programs seem to randomly freeze, once they do become responsive I open Dolphin and can't access anything.

I click Home, Network, Root, Trash or my other partition and other HDs but nothing comes up, just get a blank white space. At the bottom of Dolphin I get a message stating "The process for the file protocol died unexpectedly".

Can someone shed some light on this error and how to prevent it from happening again?

I have not installed any new hardware or software and haven't made any changes to my system.

Speedy,

Xfce does not run admirably under KDE 4 as it was under KDE 3. It is a long story to try solve that misdemeanor of desktop in the current Kde 4 situation. I have experienced the similar events when i was running Slackware 13.37 (xfce). I have downgraded to Slack 13.1 just to be able to use Xfce, until I found Salix OS. If you really love Slackware and Xfce try Salix 13.37, it is based on, and highly compliant to, Slackware 13.37. Salix 13.37 has liveCDs for each popular fast DEs. If you want you can download an installer iso here.

Try the KDE community forums here.

You can test whether it's an XFCE issue by running xwmconfig before starting X and switching to another window manager, such as Fluxbox or KDE.

Possibly failing memory or hard disk. First thing is to make sure you have backups. Then try a Live CD to see if you have similar problems.

Do you have any disk partitions that are full? Or really close to full?

The message is KDE specific and is kio related. The message occurs when a kio slave connection is lost. Finding the root cause requires learning which kio process has lost its file connection.

For example, a desktop wallpaper that is stored on a network drive and the network connection is lost. Some people have had similar issues when using a slide show desktop wallpaper with very large file sizes and the hard drive can't deliver the next image fast enough. Another example is a file connection is lost because permissions change and access to the file is restricted or lost. When these types of events occur a timeout occurs, although there is no actual error, and the kio process interprets the delay as a lost slave connection. Once the kio process halts anything related stops too.

Check disk space where the KDE temporary files are stored. Traditionally the two non-persistant temporary locations are in /tmp and the persistent temporary location is /var/tmp. Those default locations can be overridden through the use of the $TMP and $TMPDIR environment variables. So, for example, if $TMP/$TMPDIR is mapped to tmpfs, which is mapped to RAM, and the tmpfs area is filled to maximum, those locations become full and then KDE apps no longer can store temporary data.

As you say the problem is recent then try to recall anything you might have done in the past few days with respect to reconfiguring your desktop. Possibly KDE4 apps and kio processes don't play well in Xfce so finding the root cause might require a slow methodical process of disabling various KDE services, enabling one at a time, and waiting for the freeze.

As precautions, an old KDE trick that never hurts, but might not be related, is to log out of KDE and delete the KDE cache files. Another trick, although you primarily use Xfce, is to login to KDE and ensure sessions are not being saved.

As other precautions, you might want to run a full hard drive fsck (as root: touch /etc/forcefsck and reboot). Possibly reseat the RAM sticks too.

Slack partition is 56% empty, root is 16% empty and backup HD is 35% empty. My other HDs and partitions have more space available.

How would I safely delete everything from those locations without causing any problems to my system?


I have not changed anything for weeks apart from installing a couple of programs, Audacity and Bluefish. As for disabling the services I have no idea how to do so.

Not really sure if I want to run "touch /etc/forcefsck" as "fsck" tells me my hds are mounted and "WARNING!!! The filesystem is mounted. If you continue you ***WILL***
cause ***SEVERE*** filesystem damage.

Do you really want to continue (y/n)?"

This issue only seems to be when using Dolphin and I've been trying to create the problem in KDE, Fluxbox, Openbox and XFCE and can't seem to do it, seems very random and unpredictable. I do have Thunar installed but that does not show any of my other partitions and HDs so I can't access anything from any HD apart from my Slack partition.

I did ask how to delete all the KDE programs in a previous thread as I had too many programs installed. Does Fluxbox or Openbox use KDE programs?

If you start X from the command line (run level 3), then exit X.

If you login from a login manager, then logout, switch to a console (Ctrl-Alt-F6), login as normal.

The files you want to delete:

$HOME/.kde/cache-$HOSTNAME/ksycoca*

System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Service Manager

You have to reboot.

As root, type 'touch /etc/forcefsck'.
Logout.
Reboot.

Not directly. KDE programs will be available when the user wants them, but there are no KDE dependencies.