KDE or screen lockups have been experienced after update from SL6.3 to SL6.9

After upgrade from SL6.3 to SL6.9, several systems have experienced problems with KDE applications like the Plasma Desktop. They seem to be crashing or causing the screen to lock up.

These appear to be caused by incompatible KDE settings or configuration files. Those files are stored in the .kde sub-directory in the user’s home directory i.e( /home/tc1/.kde ).

The .kde sub-directory contains the user’s customization and settings. Rename the .kde sub-directory to kde.old and let KDE rebuild the directory as described below.

Note: Keep the old directory for future reference. The directories can be compared as required.

Execute the following steps to recreate the directory using KDE:

1. Log out and stay logged out of the test cell account or log in to a different account.
2. Press the CTRL-ALT-F1 key combination to switch to a console login.
3. Login to the test cell account.
4. Enter: $ mv .kde kde.old
5. Press the CTRL-ALT-F7 key combination to toggle back to the desktop view.
6. Log back into the test cell account. KDE will have recreated the .kde sub-directory with correct defaults.
7. If you had any applications that were being automatically started, move the kde.old/Autostart directory into the new .kde/ sub-directory:
   $ mv kde.old/Autostart .kde/Autostart
8. Log out and then back login again to verify the applications are auto-starting.
9. Finally, there may be other configuration settings that were customized for the test cell. You will have to manually make those changes.