[ubuntu-studio-users] Random UI freakouts in Ubuntu Studio 22.04

[James Harkins]

Hi, first post.

I've been a loyal user of Ubuntu Studio since... I think maybe 14.04? Generally a first-rate experience -- the fact that in, oh, 7-8 years I never needed to sign onto the mailing list tells you how little trouble I had with it.

Last November, I got a new computer and installed Ubuntu Studio 22.04 on it. Initially, the problems were only very minor, the sorts of things I expect from an Ubuntu upgrade.

So let's fast forward to 3 weeks ago, when I had my first lecture class of the semester, and my first time plugging this machine into the classroom projector (end of the previous semester here was all online). At first it wasn't quite syncing up, so I tried a few different screen resolutions, and then... the Plasma taskbar at the top disappeared. The Super key couldn't open the launcher menu, so... no apps, nothing.

I found a webpage explaining how to delete the Plasma configuration files and reboot, and this did restore functionality. But the system has never been quite the same. *Mostly* ok, but I had to reboot a few extra times during the last week.

The cruncher was, yesterday I had a performance, and:

1. Plugged in a USB SSD... the touchpad sensitivity went down to a crawl. Unusable. Reboot.
2. 5 minutes later, the taskbar didn't disappear, but it froze -- couldn't switch workspaces, couldn't switch apps except for alt-tab. Reboot.
3. Fine for a few hours after that, but then I was using the Ubuntu Studio Controls app to switch the USB soundcard, and the system stopped responding to mouse clicks or typing. Reboot.

This is just hours before a show... a rather different quality of user experience from the last several years of rock-solid stability. (However the show went off without a hitch!)

The KDE community has been only somewhat helpful. KDE Forums ban all IP addresses from mainland China, and VPNs apparently -- summarily, with no way to appeal. So I'm not able to ask the user community for workarounds.

I ended up logging a bug report for the first problem, but was told that Plasma 5.24.7 is no longer supported, and that if I need support, I should upgrade the desktop. But:

https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/ubuntu/backports/+index?field.series_filter=jammy&batch=75&direction=backwards&start=300

plasma-desktop	4:5.24.7-0ubuntu0.1~ubuntu22.04~ppa1

... oh. 5.24.7. So, I can't upgrade Plasma without upgrading to Kinetic.

So the simpler question is: does Ubuntu Studio 22.10 ship with Plasma 5.27? (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=466586#c1 -- "This is one of the reasons why multi-monitor handling was completely re-done in Plasma 5.27 to fix issues such as this one. Please update to 5.27 as soon as your distro offers it to you.") It seems I need this Plasma version... before taking on the risks of an OS upgrade, I'd like to confirm that it will really help.

The broader question is... what is the best way forward for me to have a stable, functioning system again?

Thanks. Again, my experience with Ubuntu Studio has been excellent over the years, which is why I'm caught a bit off guard with these recent troubles.

hjh