Plasma/Wayland Known Significant Issues

This page tracks the Wayland showstoppers throughout the stack. Showstoppers are major bugs, or missing features affecting the Wayland session but not the X11 session. This is part of KDE's Wayland goal.

True Showstoppers

These are the issues that must be fixed before we can recommend Wayland by default.

Session management

• Applications don't prompt to save unsaved work, causing data loss: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=461176
• No session restore for native Wayland windows: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436318. Our session management recovery engine is based on the X Session Management Protocol and there is apparently currently no generic concept to do it on Wayland. But on Qt it's plugin-able and GNOME has had their own implementation for some time.

KWin/compositing/window management

• When the compositor crashes or restarts, non-Qt apps are killed — work is ongoing to fix this, see https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/wikis/Restarting
• Not all Sticky Keys options work: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444335
• No color management or support for changing Gamma: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439135, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439135, https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/issues/11; requires https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/14 and adoption in KWin

NVIDIA

• Sometimes can't log in at all: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=440397
• Unusably poor performance on external screens with NVIDIA Optimus setup: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452219
• Plasma Panels sometime visually freeze: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=469016

Non-showstoppers

This is effectively an "Errata/Known issues" list: quality-of-life annoyances, problems with workarounds, etc. Don't expect all or even any of these to be fixed before we go wayland-by-default.

Apps

• KFontView is unable to open or install a font: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439470

Session management

• Session-restored windows go on the wrong screens and virtual desktops: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=468252 + https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=421870
• When dragging files, to trigger a specific result, you have to hold down a modifier key *before* you start dragging, not after: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=423031

KWin/compositing/window management

• Worse performance on weak Intel iGPUs: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452119
• Cursor theme/size changes do not take effect for Qt5 and XWayland software until session is restarted: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420859
• Picture-in-Picture windows from web browsers get a Task Manager icon and do not stay on top: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=463288; requires https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/132 and adoption in apps using PiP windows (like web browsers)
• Windows marked "keep on top" cover up panel widget pop-ups and clipboard history menu: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=466844
• Visual line glitches with certain fractional scale factors: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465158
• Quick tile actions and window rules cannot override window's minimum size if needed as on X11: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434615
• Windows that were closed when maximized and do not record their own maximized state will re-open in the maximized position, but not the maximized state: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=437089
• Previewing Window Switchers doesn't clean them up afterwards: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=374971
• KWin doesn't differentiate Meta+Num+1 from Meta+1: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=413310

Plasma

• XWayland applications may not autostart properly in a Wayland session due to various important environment variables not being set: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=469839
• XEmbedSNIProxy window eats input in top-left pixel of the screen: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=433079
• When dragging images from Firefox to the desktop, have to hold the drag 1 or more seconds over the desktop before releasing or else the desktop drop menu does not appear: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=448867
• Installed Chrome apps are grouped together with Chrome windows in Icon-Only Task Manager: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=358277
• When using a Chromium-based browser in native Wayland mode, dragging an image to the desktop creates a sticky note out of it: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449645
• After dragging-and-dropping a Favorites app in Kickoff, next click anywhere launches that thing: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444489:
• Wrong app icon in Task Switcher for LibreOffice apps: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-77182

NVIDIA

• Transient graphical glitches after waking from sleep: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=455526, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=448866, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451293
• Transient graphical glitches after changing themes: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=470503

Fixed upstream in Qt 6

These are fixed in Qt 6 but neither backportable nor backported to Qt 5.

• plasmashell crashes when hovering or clicking items on the Panel due to "zwp_linux_buffer_params_v1.add" protocol error: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=447717; fixed in Qt 6.3
• Wrong positioning of context menu in multiple screens: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436016 / https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-85297; fixed in Qt 6.4
• When using a fractional scale factor, native Wayland apps are slightly blurry: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=446674; fixed in Qt 6.6
• Changing scale causes Qt-based software to become blurry until restarted: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-78327; fixed in Qt 6.6
• Apps using QDesktopServices::openUrl()/Qt.openUrlExternally don't raise existing windows in the activated app: https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/321246 and https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtbase/+/447556; fixed in Qt 6.5
• QMenus appear as standalone windows when opened using a stylus: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-111130; fixed in Qt 6.6 - https://github.com/qt/qtwayland/commit/59fae923d72eaf640035237ae6ddb1ccfeba2210
• When the compositor crashes or restarts, Qt apps are killed - Fixed in Qt 6.5
• In multi-monitor setups with at least one scaled display, Context menus have items which are invisible until hovered: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-93380 - Fixed in Qt 6.6
• When logging into a Wayland session after having previously used the X11 session, all outputs have their scales reset to 100%: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=433460
• Context menu text becomes is blurry until interacted with on scaled displays in multi-display setups: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451259
• Some Plasma icons are blurry until interacted with mixed-dpi multi-screen setup: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=460493
• QDockWidget does not visually move when moving and is not re-dockable when detached: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-87332 - fixed in Qt 6.6