I upgraded from KDE 4.1 to 4.2 in OpenSUSE 11.1. I had three icons on the panel for programs I used a lot in 4.1. When I booted 4.2, there were three blank icons on the panel, with no information in them. I deleted them, and added new icons from the menu (by right-clicking on the programs in the menu). I then added a couple of new widgets to the desktop, and removed one I didn't want any more (the moon phase).

When I rebooted next, I had *six* blank icons on the panel, and the widget I'd removed from the desktop had returned, though the new widgets were there too.

I've tried deleting .kde and .kde4 in the hope of starting from scratch, but though the rest of my desktop returned to the default for 4.2, but those six blank icons keep coming back, as does the moon phase widget.

Any help much appreciated!

I would love to know the answer to this question. I have been looking everywhere and still the 'dead' icons show up on my desktop. I made the mistake of not locking my 'wdigets' and deleted another icon that was on top of a 'dead' icon and now have two 'dead' icons on top of each other that won't go away.

Some way plasma is not being properly closed, and as a result, your settings are not being saved.
After setting up your desktop, press Alt+F2 and type in:

Code: Select all

kquitapp plasma

This should nicely close down plasma. Now press Alt+F2 again and type in plasma to launch it again.

See if upon reboot, you again have those faulty icons.

carandol wrote:I've tried deleting .kde and .kde4 in the hope of starting from scratch, but though the rest of my desktop returned to the default for 4.2, but those six blank icons keep coming back, as does the moon phase widget.

Sounds very weird to me. If Lii's suggestion doesn't help, could you please try to log in with a new user and see if the problem persists.

Thanks for the ideas. I've tried Lii's suggestion, and the blank icons come back after I run plasma again. I also tried logging in as a different user, and that too has a blank icon (just one this time) left over from KDE 4.1 that won't go away. So something's obviously being kept somewhere that isn't .kde or .kde4.

carandol wrote:I upgraded from KDE 4.1 to 4.2 in OpenSUSE 11.1. I had three icons on the panel for programs I used a lot in 4.1. When I booted 4.2, there were three blank icons on the panel, with no information in them. I deleted them, and added new icons from the menu (by right-clicking on the programs in the menu). I then added a couple of new widgets to the desktop, and removed one I didn't want any more (the moon phase).

When I rebooted next, I had *six* blank icons on the panel, and the widget I'd removed from the desktop had returned, though the new widgets were there too.

I've tried deleting .kde and .kde4 in the hope of starting from scratch, but though the rest of my desktop returned to the default for 4.2, but those six blank icons keep coming back, as does the moon phase widget.

Any help much appreciated!

I am having the same problem. It started after my update on Thursday night. I have tried the recommendations on this thread and I am still unable to get rid of these annoying blank icons.

Any help will be appreciated.

mtv241

I have some additional information. I removed the blank icons and then locked my widgets. I shutdown plasma (as suggested above) and when I restarted plasma, all of the old icons were back as blank and the newer icons (that I created when my original icons had been blanked) are now blanked as well. This is becoming really frustrating. I am new to the Linux and KDE community and I have loved the improvements over Vista, so I guess having this single issue in the past few months is better than the Windows track record.

You need to either delete your plasma-appletsrc, or dig inside (make sure plasma is not running).

Look for [Containments][X][Applets][XX] inside plasma-appletsrc, where X and XX are numbers. Take a look at which of these have "plugin=icon". The section under those should read [Containments][X][Applets][XX][Configuration] and have an empty "url=" line. Delete both the applet and the Configuration section, repeat this for every blank icon you have on the panel, and restart Plasma.

einar wrote:You need to either delete your plasma-appletsrc, or dig inside (make sure plasma is not running).

Look for [Containments][X][Applets][XX] inside plasma-appletsrc, where X and XX are numbers. Take a look at which of these have "plugin=icon". The section under those should read [Containments][X][Applets][XX][Configuration] and have an empty "url=" line. Delete both the applet and the Configuration section, repeat this for every blank icon you have on the panel, and restart Plasma.

Thank you very much. It took a little bit to find the file location. For anyone else that is interested the file should be in homeusername.kde4shareconfig at least it was under my opensusse 11.0 system. I booted in gnome, made the changes and then restarted in KDE 4.2 and everything was fixed.

Thanks everyone!

Removing that file did the trick. I had removed it before BUT I was still in KDE4 so it must have written the file on exit.

Now if we can just get ATI to write a top shelf video driver we'd be totally set.

einar wrote:You need to either delete your plasma-appletsrc, or dig inside (make sure plasma is not running).

Look for [Containments][X][Applets][XX] inside plasma-appletsrc, where X and XX are numbers. Take a look at which of these have "plugin=icon". The section under those should read [Containments][X][Applets][XX][Configuration] and have an empty "url=" line. Delete both the applet and the Configuration section, repeat this for every blank icon you have on the panel, and restart Plasma.

Yay! That did the trick. Well, actually, I logged in using IceWM and deleted the whole of .kde4 and that got rid of my problems on the toolbar and the desktop in one easy move. As BasilPugfury (what a lovely name! ) said, I did it from within KDE4 before, so my changes obviously got overwritten on leaving.

If the issue is solved, please mark the thread as solved. Thank you.