Comment 9 for bug 1449726

I get a Plasma shell crash at varying times - usually once a day or so. Something that seems to trigger it fairly predictably is switching desktops while certain activities are busy doing network stuff.

I'm a web developer and I have Kate sessions with several dozen files open, such as all the PHP from a WordPress site. I have Dolphin on one desktop and Kate on another. If I open a new batch of remote files from Dolphin, the system (Kubuntu 15.10) switches desktops and opens the new files, but if I don't wait for this to finish and go back to Dolphin (or elsewhere) Plasma tends to crash, usually not offering to restart (but perhaps that message window is on a now-inaccessible desktop?).

The window on the current desktop is still active, but with no system tray I can't move from it. Once I close it I get a black screen and the only way the system will then respond is Ctrl-Alt-Del or Alt-F-something to start a new login shell. I'm not sufficiently experienced to know how to restart Plasma, or even if it's possible.

I have no great interest in operating systems; I just use them. I pick the one that lets me do my work cleanly, and until Plasma 5 KDE/Kubuntu was streets ahead of anything else. If there were something on Windows to match Dolphin/Kate for seamless local and remote file management I'd go there. It's a shame that Plasma 5 is a several-steps downgrade in reliability terms.