KDE desktop freezes on connection to network
 

Hi all,

I've recently installed opensuse 11.2 with KDE on a sony vaio z-series, and everything works fine - at home. When I connect it to my work's network (either ethernet or wireless), within about twenty seconds the desktop freezes. If I have any applications open, I can still use them, but I can't open the k-menu or interact with any plasma widgets. If I unplug the ethernet cable everything starts working again after a few minutes (though with some odd graphical behaviour).

This is what happens in /var/log/messages:

Dec 2 17:02:40 linux-qr96 dhclient: Listening on LPF/eth0/00:1d:ba:69:51:39
Dec 2 17:02:40 linux-qr96 dhclient: Sending on LPF/eth0/00:1d:ba:69:51:39
Dec 2 17:02:40 linux-qr96 dhclient: Sending on Socket/fallback
Dec 2 17:02:42 linux-qr96 dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 kernel: [ 2692.667996] martian source 255.255.255.255 from 194.131.174.33, on dev eth0
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 kernel: [ 2692.668036] ll header: ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:00:30:48:2e:d6:6c:08:00
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 dhclient: DHCPACK from 194.131.174.33
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 dhclient: bound to 194.131.174.201 -- renewal in 1677 seconds.
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 avahi-daemon[1821]: Joining mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 194.131.174.201.
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 avahi-daemon[1821]: New relevant interface eth0.IPv4 for mDNS.
Dec 2 17:02:44 linux-qr96 avahi-daemon[1821]: Registering new address record for 194.131.174.201 on eth0.IPv4.
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 if-up.d/21-dhcpcd-hook-samba: No dhcpcd info nor dhclient leases file found for eth0.
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: Setting up rules from /etc/sysconfig/SuSEfirewall2 ...
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: Warning: no default firewall zone defined, assuming 'ext'
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: using default zone 'ext' for interface eth0
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: using default zone 'ext' for interface pan0
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: using default zone 'ext' for interface wmaster0
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: batch committing...
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 SuSEfirewall2: Firewall rules successfully set
Dec 2 17:02:45 linux-qr96 sm-notify[7964]: Already notifying clients; Exiting!


I've tried disabling the firewall and turning off the desktop effects (after reading somewhere that this might help) to no avail. Like I said, everything works fine at home - it can connect to the wireless without freezing, so it must be something peculiar to that network. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

If I were you I would try two things. First of all, at work, kill pulse audio. I see messages from the avahi-daemon, that is part of pulse. I had a nasty bug with pulse. It was killing the wireless adapters, they could not connect to the local WAP with pulse running on my system. Soon as I killed pulse, everything returned to normal. I just disabled it. I can re-enable it at any time, if I want to.

Second, I would install another desktop, and try that. KDE 4 is still flacky, at best. Give xfce a try, it does all the basic stuff well enough.

Beyond those two things, there isn't much I can see in the log to give us a clew...