Problem remains:
>boot ok
>login ok
>mouse cursor ok
>xfce-panel & yakuake ok
>>>>>>but display stays blank/black: no KDE-panel= no plasmashell in general

What I did (according to Cobber):
-rollback to 5.8.0 (snapper)
-deleted all activities and renamed the remaining one to Default
-desktop-layout is set to desktop-view not folder-view
-reboot
-upgrade to 5.8.1

Does anyone else has this problem?

I have the same problem.

It's probably the sddm problem. Fix should have already landed in Neon. Look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/5 ... _on_prime/

Cobber wrote:

kinoe wrote:Did you rollback the update to 5.8.0? How?

Ah. Years of experience! Always create regular system images so you can restore to an earlier, working copy if necessary.

You an use Redo Backup to create these images in Linux.

Hi Cobber. Maui has held back 5.8.1 for now so this disaster has not befallen me. i'm interested however in the "insurance policy" potential of Redo Backup, but have a basic question for you. My /home partition is encrypted [from original installation via Ubiquity installer]. As RB will be loaded from boot, my partitions will be unmounted hence my /home will still be encrypted [presumably/hopefully]... wouldn't that prevent RB being able to help me [though of course it could still do my separate / & /opt partitions]?

.............................................................................................................................................................................
Tower's SSD OS = Linux Mint x64 17.3 KDE 4.14.2. [< 26/9/16]; Maui Linux Aurora Plasma 5.8.0.

@ subdiff

It's probably the sddm problem. Fix should have already landed in Neon. Look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/5 ... _on_prime/

no unfortunately it is not: i dont have nvidia and i can login. The problems arise after login: I 've access to gnome-adds but plasmashell seems to crash due to problems i can not distinguish.
Here the output again, when plasmashell should be started manually:

Code: Select all

$ plasmashell
QFont::setPointSizeF: Point size <= 0 (0.000000), must be greater than 0
No metadata file in the package, expected it at: "/usr/share/wallpapers/Next/contents/images/"
No metadata file in the package, expected it at: "/usr/share/wallpapers/Next/contents/images/"
No metadata file in the package, expected it at: "/usr/share/wallpapers/Next/contents/images/"
QPainter::begin: Paint device returned engine == 0, type: 2
QPainter::save: Painter not active
QPainter::translate: Painter not active
QPainter::scale: Painter not active
QPainter::worldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::setPen: Painter not active
QPainter::setBrush: Painter not active
QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
QPainter::setRenderHint: Painter must be active to set rendering hints
QPainter::worldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::worldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::brush: Painter not active
..........
.........
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::setOpacity: Painter not active
QPainter::setWorldTransform: Painter not active
QPainter::restore: Unbalanced save/restore
QPainter::end: Painter not active, aborted
file:///usr/share/plasma/shells/org.kde.plasma.desktop/contents/views/Panel.qml:83: TypeError: Cannot read property 'Layout' of null
Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/qml/QtQuick/Controls/Button.qml:100: TypeError: Cannot read property of null
file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/qml/QtQuick/Controls/Button.qml:100: TypeError: Cannot read property of null
file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/qml/QtQuick/Controls/Button.qml:100: TypeError: Cannot read property of null
file:///usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/qml/QtQuick/Controls/Button.qml:100: TypeError: Cannot read property of null
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/bin/plasmashell from kdeinit
sock_file=/run/user/1000/kdeinit5__0
KCrash: crashing... crashRecursionCounter = 2
KCrash: Application Name = plasmashell path = /usr/bin pid = 17437
KCrash: Arguments: /usr/bin/plasmashell
KCrash: Attempting to start /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/drkonqi from kdeinit
sock_file=/run/user/1000/kdeinit5__0
QSocketNotifier: Invalid socket 8 and type 'Read', disabling...
QSocketNotifier: Invalid socket 18 and type 'Read', disabling...
QSocketNotifier: Invalid socket 9 and type 'Read', disabling...

[1]+  stopped              plasmashell

No, the latest updates have NOT fixed the problem.

If you create an activity, it will work until you logout or reboot. You will then be greeted with the black screen and mouse pointer when you have logged in.

Have narrowed the culprit down to the Activity Pager widget.

When I created a new activity (but did not add the Pager widget) the activities survived a reboot. Once I added the pager widget, the problem resurfaced.

From Mint, I opened /home/cobber/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc and located this code:

Code: Select all

[Containments][1][Applets][156]
immutability=1
plugin=org.kde.plasma.activitypager

I deleted that block and on reboot, my activities worked again. I then added the Activity Bar widget instead and everything is working fine.

Something appears to be wrong with how the Activity Pager widget works in 5.8.1, but I am not clever enough to figure out what. Hopefully this find may help someone more knowledgeable to pinpoint the problem.

Edit: Think I may have found it. In /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.activitypager the subfolders and file /contents/ui/main.qml are missing.

Many, many thanks, Cobber.

steffie wrote:Hi Cobber. Maui has held back 5.8.1 for now so this disaster has not befallen me. i'm interested however in the "insurance policy" potential of Redo Backup, but have a basic question for you. My /home partition is encrypted [from original installation via Ubiquity installer]. As RB will be loaded from boot, my partitions will be unmounted hence my /home will still be encrypted [presumably/hopefully]... wouldn't that prevent RB being able to help me [though of course it could still do my separate / & /opt partitions]?

Sorry, I missed your post in all the drama. Redo Backup boots from CD/USB and does a bare metal backup. You select which partitions you want to backup at the time.

If you have just Root and Swap, you can choose to merely backup the Root partition. If you have a separate Home partition, you would choose Root and Home. I don't know for sure, but I don't think the fact Home is encrypted would make any difference. It backs up whatever is on each partition, almost like a sector-by-sector backup.

When you do a restore, it puts everything back to what it was at the time you made the backup. You can't choose what to restore though, only what to backup. So I don't backup my large partitions I have for storing my data files. I can just copy those folders and files to a portable HDD. I am only backing up my operating system, which takes about 3 minutes.

FYI: I updated the bug report with some more info on the problem
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=370630

Thanks heaps Cobber.

@cobber
as i mentioned above i did as you had suggested (downgrade, deleted all activities but one default, reboot, upgrade), but the problem remained!
So deletion of that code in /home/cobber/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc after the still not functioning upgrade doesn't make sense, does it?

And what is more in fully functioning 5.8.0 i do not have the subfolders and file /contents/ui/main.qml of /usr/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.activitypager, just metadata.desktop is found there.
So i don't see how these may be missing in 5.8.1? Am i missing something or did i get you wrong?

@Kinoe

The problem is definitely caused by the Activity Pager widget. Using the Activity Bar widget instead definitely works. Removing the code from that .config file will enable you to boot normally, while retaining your existing activities. I didn't check for the qml file in 5.8.0, interesting.

KDE have marked my bug report as a copy of this one which also recommends removing the same block of code.

So the problem must lie somewhere else. All I can suggest is to use the alternative widget until they find a fix.

In your particular case, if removing that code doesn't allow normal operation then you may need to do a fresh install, as yours may have been too badly damaged.

@ cobber
thanks a bundle!
I missed to delete the last activitypager in the panel
but this time it works.

I have this problem also. i5 GTX 960m Nvidia 370. But the problem manifested as this - I could not see anything on my screen unless I was connected to external monitor. It started some time prior to 5.8 when they talked about putting a lot of work into multi monitor support.

In my attempt to fix it after trying all regular things I took a shot in the dark and installed 4.9rc1 which after being booted into that kernel I installed nvidia 370 going from 367 and I reinstalled Nvidia settings. I think those 2 installs somehow got borked without any notification.
Also I think 4.9rc1 messed up some firmware somehow.
Anyways I'm wondering if any you can help me as I'm totally stuck. I can't install or uninstall anything, I think somehow I got this bug.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... %3Bmsg%3D9