Plasma "upside down" ...

Sat Jul 14 12:41:54 BST 2012

Am 13.07.2012 18:51, schrieb Duncan:

Hi 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 

I am doing this from german ...

> 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?

I might have been a bit incorrect here, since I didn't have any
applications running at that moment, when I first ran into this problem.
I just started from scratch again ... deleted the plasma* files in my
home directory, rebooted and this time took care and chose the
plasma-desktop session and not the protected one (when I say protected
... I can't think of another word for "abgesichert" which is also used
when a windows crashes and gives one the choice of starting windows and
starting a protected windows ... I think you get the idea).

Started with setting up the desktop and tried to activate desktop
effects via schift-alt-f12 and bamm! Everything upside down again, the
screen flipped again, as I could tell from the control bar on the left
side of the screen and the open system-settings window. Funny "side
effect" .. while visually flipped I still had to click in the areas,
where all the buttons are supposed to be (hope you understand what I am
talking about ... :-) )

Since you mentioned OpenGL I chchanged the composite type to Xrender and
I don't the problem there (means I can activate effects without the
flipping of the screen).

> 
> 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?

Nope. I was talking about checking "enable desktop effects at startup".
I have it disabled for now.
> 
> 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.

Nope ... no problem with the widgets and in fact I have never seen this
defaulted behaviour. On my end KDE starts with the last state (means
"locked" when previously locked and "unlocked, whern previously unlocked).
> 
> 
> 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.
> 

-- 
Talk to you later ... Hans (55 to go)

2012/07/14 10:50
EDDS 141050Z 26017G28KT 9999 SCT038 18/11 Q1011 NOSIG

___________________________________________________
This message is from the kde mailing list.
Account management:  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde.
Archives: http://lists.kde.org/.
More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.