Plasma/Wayland Known Significant Issues

This page tracks the "Errata/Known issues" that are specific to the the Plasma Wayland session: significant quality-of-life annoyances, significant problems with workarounds, etc. This is part of KDE's Wayland goal.

It is the Wayland-specific companion to Plasma/X11 Known Significant Issues.

Session management

• 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.
• Session-restored XWayland 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

KWin/compositing/window management

• When the compositor crashes or restarts, non-Qt apps are killed — Qt apps do stay alive, and work is ongoing to make other apps survive as well; see see https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/wikis/Restarting
• Worse performance on weak Intel iGPUs: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452119
• Native Wayland windows cannot save and restore their window positions; KWin would need to do it: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15329
• 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 above other windows" cover up Meta+V Clipboard menu: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=462181
• Maximized XWayland windows have pixel gaps between screen edges when using a fractional scale factor: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=459373
• "Spare Layouts" feature not implemented: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=455431
• Using key combination shortcuts to type phrases into windows is not yet implemented: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478219
• Fractional scaling below 100% breaks Chromium/Electron apps running in native Wayland mode: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477676

Color Management

• Graphics programs that require color accuracy in professional settings such as Krita, GIMP, Scribus, Darktable, Blender, DaVinci Resolve, etc. cannot guarantee accuracy, especially when moving between color spaces like sRGB and CMYK (from digital to print) or Rec. 709 (broadcast TV) until the Color Management and HDR protocol is merged and compositors like KWin implement support for it: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/14
• Calibration/Profiling tools like DisplayCAL and argyllcms are used with colorimeters to ensure monitors are displaying color accurately. A portal (which has not been proposed yet) is required for these tools to be able to calibrate the monitor on Wayland and hand the ICC profile over to the compositor as discussed here. Relevant DisplayCAL issue here: https://github.com/eoyilmaz/displaycal-py3/issues/133

Accessibility

• Can't move pointer with numpad keys: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478620
• Not all Sticky Keys options work: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444335. Input on what is relevant/wanted there is welcome.

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
• Global Menu is not supported for non-Qt apps: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=424485
• Installed Chrome apps are grouped together with Chrome windows in Icon-Only Task Manager: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=358277
• Plasma quits (doesn't crash) when too many windows are open: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=479492

NVIDIA

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

Upstream

Not yet fixed

• With screen scaling, cursor size is incorrect when hovering over native Wayland apps written with the GTK toolkit due to its lack of support for the cursor-shape-v1 protocol: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451158. See also https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=459161 for general cursor size issues.
• With a high DPI mouse, some applications might experience instability or unresponsiveness: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland/-/issues/443

Fixed or work in progress

• With NVIDIA GPU, Plasma popups (e.g. Kickoff and KRunner) sometimes stops showing after opening / closing them a few times: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=455913 / https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/503674 (Fixed in KWin for Qt <= 6.6.2, Fixed in Qt 6.6.3)
• 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 / https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/518017 (Fixed in Qt 6.6) / https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/518018 (Not yet merged)
• 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 - https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/518019 (Fixed in Qt 6.7)
• Quick tile actions and window rules cannot override window's minimum size if needed as they can on X11: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434615 / https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/524982 (Fixed in Qt 6.7)
• Wrong app icon in Task Switcher for LibreOffice apps: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-77182 (Workaround implemented: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/163249 )
• 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 - https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/525413 (Not yet merged)
• QtQuick windows exhibit jittery resizing: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477900 - https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtwayland/+/503676 (Work in progress)

Fixed upstream

These are fixed upstream but neither backportable nor backported to Qt 5. The issues listed in this section will not affect Plasma 6 or newer.

• 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
• After dragging-and-dropping a Favorites app in Kickoff, next click anywhere launches that thing: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444489 - Fixed in Qt 6.5
• When the compositor crashes or restarts, Qt apps are killed - Fixed in Qt 6.6
• 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
• Plasma and apps crash when dragging anything into another app: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=470925 - fixed in Qt 6.6
• Unusably poor performance on external screens with NVIDIA Optimus setup: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452219 - NVidia will release a driver that fixes this before Plasma 6.0 is released
• With screen scaling, cursor size was incorrect when hovering over Chromium-based browsers and Electron apps with native Wayland support enabled: cursor-shape-v1 protocol was implemented in Chromium 122: crrev.com/c/5196950, available in Electron 29: https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/tag/v29.0.0
• Dialog Parent effect isn't working: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=460819 – fixed in Qt 6.8 and KWin 6.1