r/kde • u/LJ_the_Saint • Sep 13 '26
General Bug barely customized CachyOS with KDE Plasma install hallucinates failed login attempts while the lid is closed
specs : Lenovo IdeaPad slim 3
Plasma version : 6.7.5 KDE Frameworks version : 6.30.0 QT version : 6.11.2 Kernel version : 7.2.4-3-cachyos
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u/Just-Scholar4272 Sep 13 '26
I have the same problem on lenovo legion and have not found any solution. Sometimes it does not happen while other times it happen. There is most probably an option called switch user. Use that and then enter if you face this problem.
Most probably this has nothing to do with customization rather keyboard connect/disconnect when your laptop wakes from sleep giving phantom input. I just bear with it.
Btw, if anyone has a permanent fix, please help.
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u/anh0516 Sep 13 '26
I have this problem too on Gentoo.
The solution requires you to have a root password set (or another user with root privileges). All you have to do is switch to another TTY, login as root, run
faillock --reset, and switch back to the lock screen.No, this is not a permanent fix, but it at least allows you to unlock the session immediately.
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u/Servplayer Sep 13 '26
I had this problem, in my case it was due to a faulty peripheral (think it was usb-c data cable) that prevented sleep from (it was giving something like "this id device drawing too much power" error that prevented that), which somehow counted as failed attempts at login, and it started after a system update.
So I disconnected it and it was fine, just I also never found a way to fix it otherwise and had to login as root due to same issue as op.
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u/sweasyf Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
Dump plasma login Manager, use SDDM. That solved this issue for me (manjaro Linux). Nevermind. I'm not sure this was the answer. I have switched that laptop to niri instead of kde, can no longer test. I don't have that issue on the other laptop with kde.
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u/cobarx Sep 13 '26
Claude Code investigated this one for me.
Here's what it said:
Root cause: powerdevil was auto-suspending the laptop every ~15 min when idle, even on AC. Each suspend is an s2idle freeze, and while the lock screen is up, kscreenlocker_greet holds an open PAM auth conversation. The freeze aborts that conversation mid-flight, and pam_faillock counts the aborted conversation as a failed password. So an unattended locked session quietly racked up one bogus "failed login" per suspend cycle until it hit the default deny=3.
So it bumped up the number of failed attempts before locking me out with these changes to /etc/security/faillock.conf
deny = 15 fail_interval = 120 unlock_time = 1802
u/ignorantpisswalker Sep 13 '26
I have no idea why you were downvoted.
There is a bug, and you (?) found a work around. Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Now - you should report this upstream to your distro. They will guide you to the proper upstream to report (unless its a fault in the distro).
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u/cobarx Sep 13 '26
Wild, I didn't realize using AI would make me a heretic lol. Claude is so useful for diagnosing Linux issues.
Looks like someone has already filed a bug around this, but I'll provide more info if it doesn't get fixed.
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u/Alarming-Estimate-19 Sep 13 '26
Whether his answer was right or wrong, he dared to admit that he uses AI.
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u/7lhz9x6k8emmd7c8 29d ago edited 29d ago
On a forum that encourages cancel culture. Wokes are delighted to demonstrate their hatred.
Edit: ok, it seems you're one of them, trolling/shitposting on other forums. It explains your downvotes here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliceFR/comments/1w0ogai/removed_by_moderator/
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u/Alarming-Estimate-19 29d ago
Nothing to do with the wokes.
You seem lost.
Here is a KDE discussion forum gentlemen.
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u/7lhz9x6k8emmd7c8 29d ago
That comunities tends to destroy everything they don't like. And impose to other how they want them to be. Hence they are common in Gnome community, where even the official blogs are political.
I agree that we stay outta this stuff, but unfortunately, Reddit downvote system allows hatred displaying, and our fellow contributor was a target of those haters.
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u/mastercob 27d ago
It's already reported as a bug in kde bugzilla. Also, this temp solution was already posted by multiple people.
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u/ArbiterOfOblivion Sep 13 '26
This could be catastrophically bad if someone has their laptop set to wipe after a certain amount of failed attempts.
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u/paulstelian97 Sep 13 '26
Laptops have this option? That’s news to me…
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u/OGigachaod Sep 13 '26
Sounds like a Linux option, lol.
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u/paulstelian97 Sep 13 '26
Linux kernel itself doesn’t have the option. Some GUI thing added it.
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u/C0rn3j Sep 14 '26
Linux (the distribution) and Linux (the kernel).
What you responded to meant the former.
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u/paulstelian97 Sep 14 '26
Then which distro? Because I’m pretty sure it’s not all of them, or not even close.
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u/C0rn3j Sep 14 '26
Which kernel did you mean?
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u/paulstelian97 Sep 14 '26
The kernel itself doesn’t have an option to erase the disk from password attempts. It merely intermediates all of the actions themselves.
Unlike the Linux kernel, where you just have one, distros exist in the thousands. I’m not aware of Ubuntu, Mint or Arch having this feature.
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u/Barafu Sep 18 '26
Which is why this is a bad option overall. Linux or Android. Do you really want your cat to be able to wipe your device?
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u/DistantJuice Sep 13 '26
It's a reported issue in the bug tracker: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481808
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u/tinyOnion Sep 13 '26
there's a newer bug that just showed up not too long ago https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=521900
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u/Matusaprod Sep 13 '26
of course it's there since 2 years. I love kde but there are some many problems completely neglected by developers. Insgead of adding new features they should focus on fucking fixing broken stuff
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u/C0rn3j Sep 14 '26
there are some many problems completely neglected by developers
Including you.
Nothing is stopping you from going ahead and fixing the issue yourself, or hiring someone to do it.
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u/ignorantpisswalker 28d ago
Sorry. No. This is not the correct addititude.
Not everyone has the ability to code. Even if I know how to code, I am unfamiliar with those languages or interactions between the different linux subsystems. I could point a LLM to fix this for me. But this would be rejected. See how users react to LLM generated fix.
Even if I would spend time and I would fix this issue. I am unsure how easy is to start the KDE process. Its not as simple as a PR on github. Even setting the development environment is non trivial.
I cannot also sponsor a developer which is familiar with the environment. I dont even know how to begin. Assuming I can afford it.
No. This cannot continue for another 20 years. We have users and we have developers. 20 years ago those groups were very tight. Today? Very separated.
You cannot ask any user to start contributing code. This is not possible today.
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u/overyander Sep 14 '26
apparently the issue doesn't affect anyone with the skills or desire to fix it. must be a bug encountered by relatively few people.
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u/Any_Fox5126 Sep 13 '26
It might be some script trying to run as you, but it actually needs admin rights. To avoid waiting 5 minutes for no reason, you can configure the security limits in "/etc/security/faillock.conf"
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u/mastercob 27d ago
It's not. It's just a kde bug. It's super annoying.
Glad it's affecting more people. We can all suffer together.
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u/ha_supertom Sep 13 '26
Similar issue (KDE plasma 6.7.3 on EndeavourOS), when sometimes I open the lid it says that I failed a login attempt. I wanted to write a reddit post as well but figured it wasn't that much of an issue. Though it would have been if every time I opened the lid I had to wait 5 minutes 😅
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u/p0358 Sep 14 '26
Yeah so did I, but it ended up deteriorating to this lockout for me eventually as well...
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u/Own_Natural_6803 Sep 13 '26
Hang on now. When a computer defies you like this it's not hallucinating. Something set off that flag. The UI is just being honest with you about what's going on.
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u/ApprehensiveGas85 Sep 13 '26
Workaround until 6.8 is released:
- If you are locked out right now, wait out the timer, or from another logged-in terminal or TTY (Ctrl+Alt+F3) run this, using your own username:
faillock --user YOURNAME --reset
- Open Konsole and paste this one line:
sudo sed -i 's/^# *deny = 3/deny = 20/; s/^# *unlock_time = 600/unlock_time = 60/' /etc/security/faillock.conf
That means: allow 20 failures instead of 3, and lock for 1 minute instead of 10. Real password guessing is still throttled, but a few lid closes will never lock you out.
- Check it worked:
grep -E '^(deny|unlock_time)' /etc/security/faillock.conf
You should see exactly two lines: deny = 20 and unlock_time = 60. No reboot needed, it applies to the next login.
To undo later (for example after updating to Plasma 6.8), paste:
sudo sed -i 's/^deny = 20/# deny = 3/; s/^unlock_time = 60/# unlock_time = 600/' /etc/security/faillock.conf
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u/theshredder744 Sep 13 '26
I thought I was the only one! Happens on my MSI laptop. I had to complete disable the lid switch to fix it.
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u/anh0516 Sep 13 '26
I have this problem too on Gentoo.
The solution requires you to have a root password set (or another user with root privileges). All you have to do is switch to another TTY, login as root, run faillock --reset, and switch back to the lock screen.
No, this is not a permanent fix, but it at least allows you to unlock the session immediately.
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u/CivicTypeDream Sep 13 '26
You reported it n their bug tracker as well?
Any chance you got a wireless keyboard that's waking it up & type?
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u/Exsondious Sep 14 '26
It's a bug, for now just use faillock --user username --reset in a tty, a fix should come soon hopefully
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u/WoolMinotaur637 Sep 13 '26
Happened to me when my storage was full, happens with sudo as well, maybe you can switch to TTY?
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u/sansmorixz Sep 13 '26
I literally had this happen on tty on a fresh endevour install a few hours ago. Failed 3 times got locked out. Rebooted. Issue autofixed.
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u/sansmorixz Sep 13 '26
I have observed this on tty too sometimes so not sure probably something in arch pam faces some data race. Rebooting usually fixes it.
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u/stratandsg Sep 13 '26
I had that happen with endeavoros on my laptop. It would lock me out for like 10 minutes saying there were 15 failed attempted log ins.
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u/Yeshayahu0 Sep 13 '26
I have a similar problem. The failed login attempts happen when I open the laptop lid.
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u/seppestas Sep 13 '26
I have a similar issue on my old macbook pro (mid 2014 I think), though only when the lid is open
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u/Beginning-Try3200 Sep 14 '26
I feel like I remember having this issue when I tried to install plasma on OMV, how did I fix it, I didn’t. Still, to this day, I have no idea.
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u/ayyyyice Sep 14 '26
seems like I'm not the only one with this issue, I thought my lid was pressing on the keyboard and was typing itself
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u/sutyomatic Sep 14 '26
Any chance you are using Bluetooth periferials that are not turned off when packed away while traveling?
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u/woodcraftworld Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26
I haven't been experiencing any issues on my Debian laptop (Lenovo ideapad 1i) with an Intel Celeron N4020, but I haven't ran apt update && apt upgrade in a while, probably should do that.
I use X11, not Wayland btw.
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u/KingForKingsRevived Sep 16 '26
For me it only happens when Iog out and back in and a restart fixes this
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u/AcanthocephalaLivid3 Sep 17 '26
Hmmm, I've installed CachyOS with hyprland, but switched it to illogical-impulse and haven't this problem... Did You try to use different shells or WMs?
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u/Erdnusschokolade 29d ago
I have the same problem with arch + kde on a dell latitude. My thought was the touchpad and I deactivated it on lid close/standby. That only stopped it from blocking me for 10 minutes but i still get a failed login upon waking up.
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Sep 13 '26
[deleted]
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u/Aradalf91 Sep 14 '26
With all due respect, before saying something like this as a KDE developer you should really look into the issue more. It's not an issue with faillock. It's an issue with Plasma treating the lid being opened as a login attempt. There are tens of reports on the issue across all distros.
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u/leferi Sep 13 '26
I had this when an LLM agent tried to run sudo commands which I didn't give it permission to run and those counted as failed login attempts (I wasn't running Claude Code from the terminal, but from Zed Editor, and that doesn't expose a way to type in my password)
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