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. The current plan is to flip the switch before the Alpha release, but then revert that change if we don't have all of these issues fixed before the first beta:

KWin/compositing/window management

• Not all Sticky Keys options work: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=444335

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.

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
• 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 above other windows" also go above Plasma menus, Panels, and popups: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476080 & https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=462181
• 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
• Dialog Parent effect isn't working: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=460819
• Maximized XWayland windows have pixel gaps between screen edges when using a fractional scale factor: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=459373
• 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

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
• Wrong app icon in Task Switcher for LibreOffice apps: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-77182
• Mirroring/"replica of" feature missing from KScreen KCM: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=460433 - workaround: drag a screen on top of another to mirror them

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
• 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 should fix this before Plasma 6.0

Upstream, not fixed yet

• 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
• KWin doesn't differentiate numberpad shortcuts from above-the-letters shortcuts: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=413310 / https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-94892
• 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
• 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
• With screen scaling, cursor size is incorrect when hovering over native Wayland apps written with the GTK and Electron toolkits due to their 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.
• 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 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
• 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