Chromium 154 is causing havoc with people's KDE desktops, but there's a fix

Published Sep 30, 2026, 12:55 AM EDT Simon is a Computer Science BSc graduate who has been writing about technology since 2014, and using Windows machines since 3.1. After working for an indie game studio and acting as the family's go-to technician for all computer issues, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech. Since beginning his writing career, he has written for many different publications such as WorldStart, Listverse, and MakeTechEasier. However, after finding his home at MakeUseOf in February 2019, he would eventually move on to its sister site, XDA, to bring the latest and greatest in Windows, Linux, and DIY electronics. Sign in to your XDA account Summary Chromium 154 creates broken fontconfig cache symlinks, causing KDE Plasma/Qt apps to crash. Symptoms: plasmashell/panel crashes, lock screen issues, and browser lockups reported. Fix: update your Chromium-based browser and system; patch pushed; clear ~/.cache/fontconfig if needed. If you use KDE for Linux and you've noticed that it has been crashing on you more often than usual, you're not alone. As it turns out, a bug caused people using a Chromium-based browser with KDE Plasma to run into some pretty nasty issues. Fortunately, it seems a patch has just been pushed out, so give your system an update and see if that fixes the problem. Chromium 154 is causing issues with KDE Plasma due to a fontconfig cache bug Give everything an update for a fix Over on the Linux subreddit, a Redditor who goes by the amazing name "vvvwwwwvvwwwvwvvwvvw" made a post detailing what's happening with Chromium-based browsers. It turns out that a recent update to the browser tech is making KDE Plasma's apps crash due to the fontconfig cache: Spent a good part of today trying to figure out why my KDE Plasma suddenly started breaking. Plasmashell would crash, the panel would disappear, and I also had issues with the lock screen. Restarting plasmashell brought it back, but the problem could return after reboot/login. Turns out there is a recent Chromium 154 bug where it creates broken fontconfig cache symlinks in ~/.cache/fontconfig, with older cache names pointing to cache-12 files. KDE/Qt apps can then crash inside fontconfig. It's worth remembering that this is for Chromium browsers, not just Chrome. As such, if you use a browser that's based on Chromium (like Brave and Opera), you may also experience issues with version 154. Personally, I experienced my entire browser lock up today, something that has never happened before in my months of using KDE Plasma. Time for an update, I think.