KDE kaccessible seems to wreck system

[Budgie]

New user having had to return to my old, stable and reliable Debian 9 system which was resting for a while when I was working on another machine with openSUSE Leap 15.0 installed. Both machines are running KDE desktops.

My openSUSE machine suddenly started to exhibit weird behaviour until I could no longer control or shut it down and had to recourse to a keystroke REISUB shut down. It seems the system is broken and will take me time to repair so I cranked up my old Debian system and all was well until I updated.

Since I updated the Debain/KDE system I find I now have some unwanted and unrequested KDE accessibiity modules which will not go away. I have found the system has become very unstable and exhibits problems similar to those on my openSUSE before it crashed including delay of mouse response, freezing of screen and other horrors.

Because I could not get rid of the "kaccessibleapp" I asked and was advised to purge the kaccessible module, which I did.

Great joy because not only was the offending widget removed but my system is now working correctly again. Thought I would post in case others have problem.
Once again KDE strikes.
Time to change to another desktop I think.
Budgie.

[Hallvor]

Without any logs and more info on your system, this is not helpful.

Out of the thousands of computers running kdeaccessibility, you are the only one to report such erratic behavior on your computer.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgrepo ... essibility

I am suspecting PEBKAC, but by all means, file a bug report if you think I am mistaken.

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

[Budgie]

Understood and PEBKAC is not entirely a foreign problem! In this case and what prompted my message was that I have been unsettled by sudden and unexplained problems with similar symptoms on two almost identical machines (IBM X3400 M3 servers) one running openSUSE Leap 15.0 and the other Debian 9. Both have KDE desktops. The first problem started when I noticed problems with my openSUSE system at about the same time as new icon appeared in the tray which I didn't recognize and on looking found it to be "kaccessibleapp." Not requested, not announced previously and not wanted. The system became increasingly unresponsive until it crashed and I had to recourse to keystroke REISUB. On rebooting the system went into emergency mode and a brief investigation indicated errors on /dev/sda3 which is my operating system root partition.

At this point I dusted off and started my spare machine which has always been steady and reliable and remained so until I allowed updates to proceed. Following this I started to get the same screen flickering and using the mouse became increasingly difficult with commands not responding and windows flashing on and off. The new icon was also in my Debian system after updating and I found I could only get rid of it by purging the accessible module which includes the kaccessibilityapp. Until this was removed I found the mouse unresponsive and the screen flickering when opening and closing windows. Unfortunately some of the problems re-appeared after a while so rather than messing around I just changed my desktop, first to XFCE and then LXDE which I have been using since then without any repeated problems.

I know that I have had several problems with KDE and graphics recently and am now perhaps oversensitive but the similarities between the problems and timing of their occurrence have provoked my reaction.
Both machines have Radeon HD6450 graphics cards but these are old enough and AFAIK not prone to causing problems nowadays.
Both machines are remote and accessed by a remote switch and KVM to the same desk. It is possible that the problem was being caused by one device common to both systems such as the KVM device but I have been at my Debian machine all day since I changed desktop and have not had a repeat.

I doubt my pay grade is senior enough to know how or sufficient time available to prepare a decent bug report. I am more concerned with whether I can recover my root partition using btrfs --repair or just do a new installation from scratch. If you are familiar with btrfs tools then please let me know.
Thanks for the reply.
Budgie

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I am more concerned with whether I can recover my root partition using btrfs --repair or just do a new installation from scratch.

See http://marc.merlins.org/perso/btrfs/pos ... epair.html & https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Restore

[Budgie]

Hi and thanks for the links. A bit above my head but helpful. Further reading earlier suggests that the problem may indeed be partly my fault as it is possible my root partition is totally full. I have not yet worked out why my Debian system has given problems but the openSUSE is down probably due to lack of maintenance/housekeeping on my part.
Trouble is my efforts to mount the problem partition have failed but there are some clues in your link which might help and I will try when I have finished this.
One point on which I would appreciate you help is this. It appears that with the partition totally full there is no room even to allow btrfs to make a repair. If I am able to mount the partition what should I delete before running the --repair option?

FYI I tried to re-install openSUSE on the problem partition but the installer threw me out on several issues until it just gave up. Working with live openSUSE didn't help but I expect/hope I will have more luck with live version of Debian or Ubuntu.
If worst comes to worst I can always reformat the problem partition but am nervous about messing up my data partitions.

[sunrat]

... but am nervous about messing up my data partitions.

You have backed up all your data to separate devices of course. Then you shouldn't be so nervous.

[Budgie]

Thanks for that. Mostly backed up but some not, mainly transient and profiles. Are you able to help with my questions or just...