Plasma-desktop bug, desktop completely black but still able to open windows

[Britt Mathis]

On 03/21/2013 04:45 PM, Duncan wrote:
> Britt Mathis posted on Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:29:20 -0400 as excerpted:
>
>> This is my first post to a mailing list ever, so I apologize in advance
>> if this has already been resolved or I am in violation of post etiquette
>> in some way.
> FWIW, your post was quite good, with one exception.  Good: You included
> the kde version, a reasonable description of the problem, and what you'd
> done to narrow it down and/or try to fix it yourself (start plasma from
> the command line, etc).  You'd be surprised at the number of people who
> include no version information at all, or if they do, it's for some
> distribution (not for kde) that others may or may not be at all familiar
> with.  That's always frustrating as it's so simple to include, but takes
> another round of question and reply to get when it's not included, and
> there's often several rounds of that as it is.
>
> Single bad point:  Many list regulars have been working with computers
> for quite some time, and are traditional enough to consider HTML messages
> bad form, at minimum.  I do, but also realize that a lot of people don't
> even know they're posting in HTML in the first place, until someone
> requests they don't.  (Sometimes people who don't even like HTML
> themselves end up posting in it themselves, if they're running a mailer
> that defaults to HTML and "forgets" their preferences, and I get thanked
> for pointing it out so they can fix it, so it's easy enough to do.)  From
> this perspective, if it has to be dressed up in HTML to be worth reading,
> it's not worth reading at all, and the people who post in HTML can be
> broken down into four camps:  The spammers, who often use HTML to hide
> some of their filter avoidance tricks, the malware folks (often a spammer
> subtype), who use it to obfuscate links and try to trick people, and/or
> to track readership without permission (web bugs), and/or to exploit a
> known security vuln in some HTML parsing mail client or other, the people
> who simply don't realize the problem or that they're doing it, and the
> rude folks who simply don't care.  Fortunately, many people are in the
> third category and only need it pointed out and they stop.  After all,
> irritating the folks who might have your answer isn't generally a good
> idea.
>
> (FWIW, your post had two portions, an HTML and a plain text portion.  But
> had I been kill-filing all HTML messages as some do, I'd have never seen
> the message and thus would have never replied...)
>
>> I am running KDE 4.10.1. Every time I customize the desktop and reboot,
>> I still get the splash animation, but I am booted into a completely
>> black screen. I am then able to use kRunner to open any application and
>> the applications function normally. As far as I can tell this is
>> specifically affecting plasma.
> Yes.  KDE is deliberately modularized enough so that barring either two
> different bugs or a single bug so bad it affects both, you'll always have
> either krunner or plasma available to launch other apps with, even if the
> other one has crashed, as plasma seems to be doing in your case.
>
>> When I try starting plasma for the command line, I get a lengthy error
>> message (I can replicate this bug and post an exact message if you all
>> would like). The main error is an X error, BadPixMap invalid parameter -
>> 4.
> Unfortunately, much of kde appears to be designed with the assumption
> that nobody but the developers runs anything from the command line or
> with STDOUT/STDERR redirected to a file in ordered to try to debug
> problems.  As a result, when run from the command line or with STD*
> captured, kde apps routinely spit out a huge amount of alarming looking
> but non-fatal "noise" that's arguably of interest to the devs themselves,
> but is just that, noise, to a power user or admin trying to debug a
> problem, but who now can't see the real problem due to the volume of
> "normal" messages, now noise hiding the signal of worth that he's trying
> to find!
>
>> I googled this and didn't really get anything recent. I have managed to
>> isolate this bug to when I resize my panel or when I add too many icons
>> to my panel. Everything else survived rebooting several times.
>>
>> I appreciate any help you guys can give me. Again, I apologize if this
>> has already been resolved.
> Here's a few hints, anyway:
>
> 1) Important!  Please backup your $KDEHOME/share/config/plasma-desktop-
> appletsrc file.  ($KDEHOME defaulting to ~/.kde or sometimes ~/.kde4,
> depending on distro.)  If this file gets corrupted, you lose all the
> customizations you have and may need to start from the defaults, as while
> it is a text-based file, it's too complex to /easily/ edit by hand.  At
> least having a backup will let you easily restore it if necessary.  I've
> had to do that a few times here.
>
> 2) With the backup made and plasma not running, try deleting the above
> file and see if you can then successfully reconfigure plasma.  If so,
> it's a problem in the existing file.
>
> 3) Try temporarily turning off desktop effects.  Sometimes they are the
> problem, but can be reenabled after the desired adjustment has been made.
>
> Gotta head to work now.  Later!
Thank you so much for your reply, Duncan. I was unaware that I was using 
html and not plain text, hopefully I have fixed the issue now.

As far as the bug is concerned, I had already renamed that file and 
started the desktop back up, which worked. I have been experimenting 
with customizations and I have narrowed the bug down to the icons being 
placed on the panel. I know I had some bash scripts that ran wine games 
on there, maybe that could have caused the issue. I will test this more 
thoroughly and get back to you all, if this is indeed a kde issue and 
not an issue with one of the packages.

Thanks again for your help,
Britt
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