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
• 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
• 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
• "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

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