Hi all
It's a long time I look for a solution about this problem.

I'm addict to KDE Desktop since 4.1 versions and time I discovered Linux.

I now use Chakra as main distro

My problem is, after each reboot or when Plasma crashes, the layout is different, plasmoids are not in the right place in the panel.
I have ot reorganize them.
It's quite boring!
Does anyone have a solution because I think I'm not the only one experiencing this problem...?

what version of KDE? does this happen with a new user?

problem may be related with large number of widgets in the panel? how many plasmoids installed? how may launchers?

found a couple of bug reports https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=284512 & https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=272812

It's KDE 4.9.2 but it happened on all versions I used in past and on all distros I had.
Sometimes after a while it was okay.
At the moment I use a dual screen configuration so I have ~15 plasmoids on 2 screens and 9 launchers.

Here is a screenshot of my desktop.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/267/92163049.png

if you lock widgets does it help?

it doesn't change anything. They change of place each reboot.
It seems to be as a configuration file can't be registered and it always reverts back to its previous value.
Permissions are correct however.

And what does it look like a reboot?

Is it possible that your system is changing the screen resolution during the login or logout process?
Simply logging out and back in should be enough to trigger this, as KDE is not running during the phases of startup and shutdown, only once a user is logged in.

bcooksley wrote:Is it possible that your system is changing the screen resolution during the login or logout process?
Simply logging out and back in should be enough to trigger this, as KDE is not running during the phases of startup and shutdown, only once a user is logged in.

It's effectively a possibility.
Logging out and logging in or simply when Plasma crashes, the layout changes.
I don't think when it crashes and it plasma is restarted screen resolution is modified, isn't it?

Do the widgets also need resizing again when this happens? Or are they just moved?

The problem evolved today.
Now it's only the plasmoids placed on the panel of the top of my right screen who move at each reboot.
It's just the order of them who changed.

You might try closing and relaunching plasma to see if that resolves the issue (run the following commands from krunner)
kquitapp plasma-desktop
plasma-desktop

I've found times where if I've made changes and then plasma-desktop crashes, it doesn't save the changes, but if I run those steps after making the changes then plasma will save the changes (which are then preserved across subsequent crashes - unless plasma crashes when closing before saving the changes)

I tried your commands.
Problem is it makes KDE crashing because of a timeout and Plasma restarts messed...

Code: Select all

[jujudeshighlands@chakra-pc-juju ~]$ kquitapp plasma-desktop
kquitapp(6996): "Erreur lors de la fermeture de l'application plasma-desktop. L'erreur rencontrée était :
                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
     org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply : Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)"

In this case, Plasma crashing on exit is definitely the cause of your issue.
Are you able to get a backtrace from the KDE Crash Assistant? If you can, please post it here in [code] tags as it may allow us to pinpoint the cause of your crash.

Thanks for the tip.
But when I type the 'kquitapp plasma-desktop' command in a terminal, it crashes but doesn't open the crash assistant.
So I don't know how to get this log.
I don't find the correct one in /var/log.
How could I force the assistant to appear?

But when I type the 'kquitapp plasma-desktop' command in a terminal, it crashes but doesn't open the crash assistant.

Why do you think it crashed? "kquitapp plasma-desktop" will do exactly that: quit the desktop (the follow up "plasma-desktop" call runs a new instance)

A dbus timeout usually means the application is dead-locked, but could in this case actually hint a crash on exit.
1. check you cpu usage (for plasma-desktop, try "top") to see whether plasma is in a life-lock
2. run gdb --pid=`pidof plasma-desktop`
3. the desktop is now halted
4. enter "bt" to gdb, to see where plasma currently hangs around - c&p that output
5. enter "continue" to gdb to make plasma go on (even if it's locked)
6. run "kquitapp plasma-desktop" (NOT in gdb
7. gdb should now tell you that the application has segfaulted, enter "bt" again to see where that happend and provide the information.