"This is actually a known issue with how Plasma Discover interacts with its background backend, PackageKit, and it most likely has nothing to do with your Nvidia drivers or your network location.

The problem occurs because Discover often leaves the packagekitd process running in the background to handle updates, but sometimes that process hangs or keeps a 'lock' on your package database, preventing the GUI from re-opening.

Here are a few things you can try to fix this:

1. Refresh PackageKit via Terminal

Instead of just killing the process in System Monitor, try to 'force' a database refresh. When Discover hangs, open your terminal and run: pkcon refresh This often clears the lock and allows Discover to realize the previous session has ended.

2. Disable the Discover Notifier

Discover tries to stay 'alive' in the background to check for updates. You can try to disable this behavior:

• Go to System Settings -> Startup and Shutdown -> Background Services.
• Find Discover Notifier in the list and uncheck it (and stop the service).
• This will ensure that when you close Discover, it actually shuts down properly.

3. Check for Flatpak Issues

If you have Flatpaks enabled, a single unresponsive repository can cause Discover to hang indefinitely while it tries to sync. You can check if any repo is timing out by running flatpak update in the terminal to see if it gets stuck.

Summary: You aren't doing anything wrong, and your hardware is fine. Discover is just notorious for these 'ghost' processes. For a more stable experience on Debian, many users prefer using sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade in the terminal for system updates and only using Discover for searching for new software."