Hello,
I’m experiencing an issue with Kodi 21.3 on CachyOS where it fails to start in true fullscreen mode despite being configured to do so. Every time I launch it, it appears with a top title bar (like a decorated window).
To fix it temporarily, I have to go to Kodi settings, switch to “Windowed” and then back to “Fullscreen”. Only after this toggle does the title bar disappear and the application occupies the whole screen correctly. This happens with both the official repository version and the Flatpak version.
System Information:
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OS: CachyOS x86_64 (Kernel 7.0.1-1-cachyos)
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DE: KDE Plasma 6.6.4 (Framework 6.25.0)
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WM: KWin (Wayland)
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CPU: Intel Core i5-8250U
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GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 620 (Integrated)
Any advice would be appreciated.
That used to happen to me last year, but I moved my HDMI to a Dock Device and it open’s in full scrfeen now. (On both Aur and Flatpak)
I had a work around though where I started kodi with:
kodi --standalone
This flag is designed to bypass the window manager and run Kodi in full-screen dedicated mode, which may resolve issues where it defaults to a windowed state.
Glad for your answer.
Unfortunately it does not work for me.
@vawaver
Here are my settings for kodi as well:Location, ─ /home/me/.kodi/userdata/guisettings.xml
me is my user of course. 
To speed your look the line is:
default="true">DESKTOP</setting> to <setting id="videoscreen.screenmode" default="false">FULLSCREEN</setting>
Hi, glad for the suggestion!
Unfortunately I was unable to get it working.
I tried the following:
- Running Kodi --standalone from terminal and via modified .desktop file — no effect
- Setting up a KWin Window Rule to force fullscreen — no effect
- Editing guisettings.xml: resetting videoscreen.monitor to Default, deleting window.width/window.height, clearing all videoscreen.* settings, and changing videoscreen.screenmode from DESKTOP to FULLSCREEN — none of these helped
The title bar still appears every time on launch. The only workaround that works is still toggling Windowed → Fullscreen inside Kodi settings after each startup.
I’m on KWin Wayland (not X11), which might be the core issue here. Has anyone else managed to solve this specifically on Wayland?
Same here:
paru -Qi kodi && inxi -F|rg -e Desktop -e Display ─╯
Installed From : extra
Name : kodi
Version : 21.3-5
Description : A software media player and entertainment hub for digital media (gl renderer)
Architecture : x86_64
URL : https://kodi.tv
Licenses : GPL-2.0-or-later
Groups : None
Provides : kodi-common kodi-x11 kodi-wayland kodi-gbm
Depends On : bluez-libs curl dav1d desktop-file-utils hicolor-icon-theme fmt lcms2 libass
libbluray libcdio libcec libmicrohttpd libnfs libpulse libva libvdpau libxslt
lirc lzo mariadb-libs mesa libpipewire python-pillow python-pycryptodomex
python-simplejson smbclient sndio spdlog sqlite tinyxml taglib libxrandr
libxkbcommon waylandpp libinput pcre tinyxml2 libdisplay-info
Optional Deps : bluez: Blutooth support [installed]
python-pybluez: Bluetooth support
pulseaudio: PulseAudio support
pipewire: PipeWire support [installed]
upower: Display battery level [installed]
udisks2: Support for removable devices [installed]
Required By : None
Optional For : None
Conflicts With : kodi-gles
Replaces : kodi-common kodi-x11 kodi-wayland kodi-gbm
Installed Size : 87.33 MiB
Packager : Ike Devolder <ike.devolder@archlinux.org>
Build Date : Thu 16 Apr 2026 03:02:08 AM MDT
Install Date : Thu 30 Apr 2026 12:40:52 PM MDT
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Install Script : No
Validated By : Signature
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.6.4 Distro: CachyOS
Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.22 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.11
Device-4: DisplayLink Triple-display Docking station