Hello.

I've updated to KDE 5 two days ago. I have the problem that the mouse theme I've set in System Settings is not followed by the Plasma desktop. It uses the default, black cursor from X11. When I hover the mouse over the task manager, or over a menu or window, then the mouse cursor switches to the correct mouse theme. But over the desktop: nope. It switches back to the default X11 cursors.

What can I do to fix this?

You're not alone, this has been happening to me since I upgraded a few months ago. Only the default cursors (Oxygen White) appear the same in all applications. Otherwise I get different cursors for applications, desktop, task manager, etc.

For me the latest KDE has been death by a thousand paper cuts, too many simple things broken...

Check

Code: Select all

tr '\0' '\n' < /proc/`pidof plasmashell`/environ | grep -i cursor

for whether this matches your cursor configuration.

---
KDE5 is currently stable enough for mass testing, but it's full of glitches - you are very much encouraged to try and report issues, but if you consider it "ready for production", you've been misinformed (eg. Qt < 5.5 has a very popular bug that easily crashes the session in multiscreen setups, knotification still crashes konsole and editing khotkeys via GUI randomly nukes the entire config...)

luebking wrote:Check

Code: Select all

tr '\0' '\n' < /proc/`pidof plasmashell`/environ | grep -i cursor

for whether this matches your cursor configuration.

Nope. It still outputs the old one (whatever is set in /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme).

If index.theme has "Inherits = ThemeA" and I select ThemeB in System Settings, the above command prints:

XCURSOR_SIZE=0
XCURSOR_THEME=A

Update:
Unless I log out and in again. Only then it gets updated.

> Unless I log out and in again. Only then it gets updated.
You mean, the problem is that the desktop cursor doesn't update *during* the session? (The environment variable won't change for the running process for sure)
Ie., if you change the cursor and restart "kquitapp plasmashell; sleep 1; plasmashell &", it will reflect the change?

> You mean, the problem is that the desktop cursor doesn't update *during* the session?
Exactly.

Also note that this doesn't seem to be a general issue. For example, non-KDE and non-Qt apps (Thunderbird and Google Chrome) don't have this problem. They pick up the cursor theme change immediately. Only the KDE desktop, the panel, and the window decorations don't.

But it was even worse previously. Even after a reboot, the desktop would use the default cursors rather than the ones set in System Settings. Fortunately this doesn't happen anymore. Not sure what fixed that one, but today there was an update for some KDE packages from 5.11 to 5.12. Maybe something got fixed there. Logging out/in or rebooting the machine will now make the desktop use the System Settings cursors, which makes it possible for multiple users to have their own cursor theme set (this wasn't possible previously.)

> Ie., if you change the cursor and restart "kquitapp plasmashell; sleep 1; plasmashell &", it will reflect the change?

I just tried that. The desktop and window decorations will pick up the change after that. But the panel will not. The panel (where the "K" menu, the task manager and the system tray icons are) will still use the old cursors even after restarting plasmashell.

I just tried that. The desktop and window decorations will pick up the change after that. But the panel will not. The panel (where the "K" menu, the task manager and the system tray icons are) will still use the old cursors even after restarting plasmashell.

That's rather strange - desktop and panel are part of the plasmashell process while the window decoration is *not*.
What about other Qt5 applications (eg. kwrite or konsole)?

> That's rather strange - desktop and panel are part of the plasmashell process while the window decoration is *not*.
> What about other Qt5 applications (eg. kwrite or konsole)?

KWrite and Konsole work fine, but they are KDE 4 apps (both are version 4.14.3). I tried my own Qt5 app though, and it picks up the change immediately.

My Qt versions btw are 4.8.7 and 5.4.2.

plasmashell seems https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=347471 (and it seems like you already found it?)
I don't think that's a downstream bug at all.

Kwin is simply a (minor) caching issue - the cursor theme is updated, but the cursor not reloaded.
As soon as you change the cursor (eg. hover window edges to trigger the resize cursor) it should follow the new theme (I assume this is what you perceived and only falsely believed it was caused by the plasmashell restart?)