Plasma "upside down" ...

[Duncan]

Hans Muecke posted on Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:44:04 -0500 as excerpted:

> Howdy folks,
> 
> Ran into a strange problem ...
> 
> Kubuntu 12.04LTS/KDE4.8.4 ...
> 
> For whatever reason my plasma desktop crashed yesterday. Couldn't get it
> to come up again, so I deleted all the plasma files in the home
> directory to start from scratch.
> I must have done that in the "protected mode" unknowingly ... since
> today - when trying to change one of the desktop effects - I was told
> that I was running protected mode and should switch to the "normal"
> plasma desktop.
> Did as requested and ended up with an "upside down" desktop. Visually
> everything is upside down, but buttons still seem to be where they are
> supposed to be on the desktop (screenshots: http://goo.gl/N4tVF and
> http://goo.gl/YjPtc ). Everything looks fine in protected mode ... minus
> effects that is.
> 
> Anyone have an idea what went wrong here and how to possibly correct it?

That is indeed a strange problem.

I have a couple ideas, but I guess you're translating from whatever 
(looks like German maybe?) to English (or maybe kubuntu changed the names 
from kde standard?) and the terms don't quite match what I'm used to.  So 
let's first confirm that we're talking about the same thing. =:^)

1) The thread title says plasma, and the pix look like plasma-desktop 
only.  So the first thing is to confirm, it's plasma ONLY that's 
affected, correct?  All other apps look normal?

Miroslaw's idea is obviously that it's either an xorg config issue, or 
indirectly an xorg config issue, thru kde's display settings.  But if 
that was the case, all X-based apps would be affected, not just plasma.  
So if it's plasma only, that can't be it.  It's just plasma.

Also, double-check other kde apps, say konqueror or dolphin, not just 
plasma.  If it's all kde apps but not other X-based apps (like say 
firefox), then it's obviously a kde or possibly a qt setting.  (If you 
have a qt4 only app that's not kde based, you can try it too, to see if 
it's all qt apps or only kde apps.)


2) Looking at the screenshots, it's NOT rotated 180 degrees (upside 
down), but actually mirrored vertically.  Correct?  Rotated would switch 
left/right as well, mirrored vertically would not.  I've seen options 
that do a full rotation, but mirroring is less common.  That's gotta be a 
clue of some kind, but I'm not sure where it fits in yet.


3) You mention "protected mode" vs. "normal mode".  This is the bit that 
was most confusing to me.  In (English) x86-based computer terminology, 
"protected mode" has a specific meaning related to 16-bit vs 32-bit CPU 
hardware memory, etc, access modes.  But that doesn't /seem/ to have 
anything at all to do with what you're describing, so that's gotta be a 
translation, distracting me from the real problem since it's bringing in 
all those unrelated "protected mode" associations.

What I /suspect/ you mean is plasma's  "lock widgets" / "unlock widgets" 
mode toggle, where many plasma settings, the position of various 
"plasmoids" (aka widgets), etc, cannot be changed unless widgets are 
unlocked.  Correct?

It's worth noting that since kde 4.5 or 4.6 or so, plasma has defaulted 
to "locked widgets" every time it starts, even if they were unlocked when 
it shutdown.  Thus, in ordered to change anything that needs widgets 
unlocked to change, you always have to unlock them, unless you already 
unlocked widgets that plasma session.  But simply unlocking them 
shouldn't trigger reversing them... so there's a serious bug somewhere, 
if that's indeed what you're seeing.


Honestly, I'm not exactly sure where to take it from there, but 
confirming those three things will be a start.  FWIW, while I've not seen 
the extremely strange behavior you describe and your pictures show, my 
desktop is spread over two monitors, and I /have/ seen plasma (JUST 
plasma, nothing else) get confused and screwed up, display-wise, when 
resolutions change or between having OpenGL on and having it off, etc.  
So it's easy for me to understand ONLY plasma getting screwed up, I've 
just not seen it get quite THAT screwed up, the vertical mirroring 
fashion you describe/show here.

As for fixing it, I don't have a solid solution for your issue, but with 
the various issues I've seen, I've always been able to fiddle with things 
to get them back they way they're supposed to be, somehow.  But if you 
confirm that I'm reading the problem correctly based on the three points 
above, hopefully between everybody here we can get it straightened out, 
somehow.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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