https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=525450
Bug ID: 525450
Summary: Panel and application menu icons disappear on every
boot/sleep cycle on Wayland (regression persists in
5.27.12 despite earlier fixes)
Classification: Plasma
Product: plasmashell
Version First 5.27.12
Reported In:
Platform: Mint (Ubuntu based)
OS: Linux
Status: REPORTED
Severity: normal
Priority: NOR
Component: Panel
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
Target Milestone: 1.0
Summary:
All panel icons and application menu icons disappear on every system boot or
sleep/wake cycle. The icons are blank but the application launcher menu items
themselves remain functional. Icons reappear immediately when cycling to a
different icon theme and back. This occurs regardless of which icon pack is
selected (Papirus, Papirus-Dark, ePapirus, ePapirus-Dark, Breeze, Breeze Dark,
Humanity, etc.).
Environment:
OS: Linux Mint 22.3
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.12
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.x
Qt Version: 5.15.x
Kernel Version: Recent (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA RTX 4060
Display: Dell 32" 2560x1440 @ 96 DPI (DP-0) + portrait secondary (DP-2),
DisplayPort connection
Global scale: 125%
Steps to Reproduce:
Boot system or wake from sleep
Observe panel taskbar and application menu (via Activities/Application
Launcher)
All icons appear blank despite applications being present and functional
Expected Behavior:
Icons should load and display correctly on startup and after wake from sleep,
regardless of icon theme or DPI settings.
Actual Behavior:
Icons are consistently blank on startup and after every sleep/wake cycle.
Workaround: manually switching icon themes (Settings → Appearance → Icons) from
current theme to any other theme and back restores icon display immediately for
the current session. This indicates a Plasma state machine initialization
issue, not a theme corruption or cache problem.
Additional Information:
The issue has persisted since initial KDE Plasma migration (September 2026)
Occurs on every boot and every sleep/wake cycle without exception (100%
reproducible)
Affects all UI locations: panel taskbar, application launcher menu, system tray
Desktop file icons have never displayed (text labels only)
Icon engine plugins are present and functional (verified via ls
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/plugins/iconengines/)
Qt platform plugins and KIconLoader config appear correct
Attempted Fixes (all ineffective):
✗ Cleared icon cache: rm -rf ~/.cache/icon-cache.kcache
✗ Rebuilt icon database: kbuildsycoca5 --noincremental
✗ Restarted Plasma shell: kquitapp5 plasmashell; kstart5 plasmashell &
✗ Tried all available icon themes (Papirus family, Breeze family, Humanity,
etc.)—problem persists across all packs
✗ Attempted to create startup hook to force theme refresh post-boot
(ineffective)
Relationship to Earlier Bug Reports:
This appears related to KDE Bug
#465536 ("Desktop icons disappear on wake up from sleep"), which was marked
RESOLVED FIXED in version 5.27.1 with commit
e1969e8452a15f9c6b9d448fb358496e79811a50 (shell/shellcorona.cpp). However, the
issue persists in 5.27.12 and affects not only desktop icons but also
panel/taskbar icons and application menu icons. The root cause in 465536 was a
screen/display detection race condition creating a fake screen on Wayland wake
events, causing KIconLoader to initialize in an incoherent state. The fix
ensured symmetric screenRemoved/screenAdded signals. This fix appears
incomplete or a regression has occurred.
Log Data:
systemd user services and Plasma startup logs show:
qt.qpa.wayland: Creating a fake screen in order for Qt not to crash (expected
Wayland behavior)
Multiple QML binding loop warnings and undefined property assignments
No obvious icon-specific errors in journal output
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