Hi @ all!

First of all I love KDE4, it's totally awesome!

Ok, so my setup goes like this: Kubuntu 9.10 (KDE 4.3.2) 64Bit, on Core i7.
`uname -a' -> "Linux *** 2.6.31-17-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 17:01:44 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux"

The problem: I start kmenuedit (either from shell or by right-clicking on kickoff) then I navigate to an entry (doesn't matter if it's a folder or an app) -> select it -> shows preferences. Then I click on the current icon to select a new icon -> 'Select Icon - KDE Menu Editor' shows up. Here I get to see some icons I may choose from, but the drop-down menu 'System icons:' is empty. That is, it isn't click-able (which I guess means that the list of categories, like 'Applications' or 'Actions' and so forth, is empty), but I may select one of the icons already shown or choose 'Other icons:' and browse for them.

What I did prior to this problem:
A script, for recurse changing file-permissions ran amok. It wasn't executed as root, just as a normal user. I'm not sure what it changed, couldn't spot anything (though I'm not exactly an expert on how file-permissions normally look )

What I did to get to the bottom of it:
First I checked the permissions in my home-dir, they looked normal. Then checked if /usr/share/icons is intact (that's where KDE keeps its icons, right?), it seams to be, permissions, too. So I guessed that my user-settings, home-dir is somewhat messed up. To verify that, I created a new user, with clean-and-new home-dir (using the 'User Management' in 'System Settings'), logged out and in again as the new user. The same problem (side-note: the new user has a different theme than my usual user). To verify that the permissions of the /usr/share/icons/ are ok I logged back in with my original user and did `sudo kmenuedit' from shell -> no luck. From any of the tested users I can access and use the icons (under /usr/share/icons/) if I choose 'Other icons:' and browse for them manually.

My question is:
Where to start looking for this problem. I guess there should be some file listing the categories, which is global to all users. If yes where may I find that? (I have a running KDE 4.3.2 32Bit on a different machine so I could diff them)

Thanks again for an amazing Desktop!

Cheers
Lain

to me, this looks like a path problem, e.g. the icon dialogue cannot find the location of the system icons.

Just to be sure: did you try to click on the "System icons" radio button? Unless you do that, the dropdown list will be disabled (i.e. you can't click on it).

Hi Riinse,

Thanks for your response!

So path problem you suggest, .... Do you know where this should be set, should that be among `exports'? If so `export | grep -i icon' returns no hit, and I've seen nothing of an icon-path-thing in my exports. If not in the exports, where would I look for such an entry? Also I guess there should be some form of management of categories of icons.

Cheers
Lain

Hi Hans,

Yep I did click on the button . As you've just mentioned the point, I also switched back and forth those two radio buttons -> no luck

> (i.e. you can't click on it).
Jep the list is click-able (it's not grayed out or something, also it highlights if I mouse-over it) so it seams to 'work' properly, besides from being empty.

Well, how should such an empty list behave, should it open (drop-down) with one empty field? Coz mine stays closed on click, just to clear if the list really is empty as I guessed.

Cheers
Lain

OK so it's more complicated than that.

Has it worked before, does it work in other applications? You can check in e.g. Dolphin (right click on folder -> Properties -> click on icon). I think I've encountered this problem as well, but for some unknown reason it fixed itself.

OK, this is about to get scary!

First things first:
> Has it worked before,
Yep, until Monday it has flawlessly. That's why I initially suspected my rampageing script to be the cause.

So here goes the David Lynch stuff:
> You can check in e.g. Dolphin (right click on folder -> Properties -> click on icon)

I open a new Dolphin (the only one running, as far as `ps -e | grep -i dolphin' tells me). It starts up in my home folder, I do the "right click on folder -> Properties -> click on icon" (will refer to this procedure with `RCFPCOI') thing with my "Documents" folder, the usual 'Select Icon - ...' dialog pops up. Same problem as in kmenuedit. But here it gets Twilight Zone: I exit the dialog and the underlying 'properties' one (doesn't matter if its with cancel or ok), and do the RCFPCOI again, now it works, categories are shown! After that I may do RCFPCOI on every folder I please and it always works.

This can be repeated, every time I restart Dolphin the RCFPCOI doesn't work, only after the second time RCFPCOI it does. Also I may do the second time on any folder, it does not have to be the same folder twice.

I also tried this:
Start Dolphin -> RC on 'Doc' -> Properties -> click on icon -> cancel/ok -> click on icon again
Does not work, it has to be:
Start Dolphin -> RC on 'Doc' -> Properties -> click on icon -> cancel/ok -> cancel/ok -> RC on 'Doc' -> Properties -> click on icon again

Also this has no effect on kmenuedit. I also tried to recreate the 'Do It Twice' procedure there and it does not change anything.

Cheers
Lain

Very strange indeed. Unfortunately I don't know how to fix this. You could try to the system configuration cache with

Code: Select all

kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental

but since you can reproduce with a new user, I doubt it would help.

It's possible that this is a bug in kdelibs. I couldn't find a report on bugs.kde.org, but maybe you can find something. Otherwise I suggest that you post a report, including the information you posted here, and maybe someone can help you to find the cause.

You could also try to reinstall KDE and see if it helps.

Hi,

Sorry, took me a while to respond

What exactly would

Code: Select all

kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental

do. Man says:

kbuildsycoca4, as part of the KDE command line tools ensures the proper operation of KDE by reading in all the .desktop, .directory, .kimgio and .protocol files to constructs a binary database.

Doesn't kde do this on startup? Or does kde only do this if something has changes since the last time it read those files (hence 'incremental')? This wouldn't kill my User settings, would it? (If yes I may try it on the 'Test User')

Also there's 'Twilight Zone The Sequel':
I start two Dolphins do the RCFPCOI 2 times in one instance and then it works in the other instance, too. It doesn't matter if I do the 2-times-magic in the first or the second instance.

As to filing a bug report, there's the problem that only I seam to have this effect and we/I cannot determine the steps I did to get there. Can I file a report based on the stuff I wrote here? I did a search on bugs.kde.org and as you, couldn't find a thing

Thanks again

Cheers
Lain

kbuildsycoca4 performs an incremental rebuild on KDE start. However it is possible that it eventually has stale data in it, or develops corruption, in which case rebuilding it completely ( with --noincremental ) fixes it.

Note that your user data is completely safe from kbuildsycoca4. It only reads files, except for its single sycoca binary cache file.

Hi,

I did the `kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental' stuff. I was not shure how to do it so, I logged out of kde and used one of the none-graphical logins. There I logged into my usual account and ran the above command, output:

kbuildsycoca4 running...
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/kde4/services/searchproviders/lppeople.desktop, line 6: " "Invalid escape sequence "\{"."
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/kde4/services/searchproviders/lppeople.desktop, line 6: " "Invalid escape sequence "\{"."
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/kde4/services/searchproviders/lpblueprint.desktop, line 6: " "Invalid escape sequence "\{"."
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/kde4/services/searchproviders/lpblueprint.desktop, line 6: " "Invalid escape sequence "\{"."
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop, line 2: " "Invalid escape sequence "\ "."
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop, line 8: " "Invalid escape sequence "\ "."

Well some formating seams to be wrong in those files, for example Line 2 in wine-browsedrive.desktop looks like that.

Name=Browse C:\ Drive

And I guess it should be "C:\\" instead of "C:\" or something? But that shouldn't be the cause for this icon problem, which did not change by doing the above...

Well how about that bug report, I already made an account @ bugs.kde.org

Cheers
Lain

lain wrote:And I guess it should be "C:\\" instead of "C:\" or something? But that shouldn't be the cause for this icon problem, which did not change by doing the above...

Try adding quotes, like

Code: Select all

Name="Browse C:\ Drive"

It's only considered a path if it's prefixed with exec= rather than name=, but it certainly looks like there's a problem with the escaping. I don't know if that file is (K)ubuntu-specific, but the lp-ones are so if those are causing the problem I would file a bug on launchpad rather than bugs.kde.org.

The file you included corrections to is provided or generated by Wine.

Hmm,

Ok to get this out the way and to be shure that it's not those files, lets fix em:
/usr/share/kde4/services/searchproviders/lppeople.desktop, line 6:

Query=https://launchpad.net/people/?name=\{@}&searchfor=\{type,t,"both"}

/usr/share/kde4/services/searchproviders/lpblueprint.desktop, line 6:

Query=https://blueprints.launchpad.net/\{project,p,""}?searchtext=\{@}

/usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop, line 2:

Name=Browse C:\ Drive

/usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop, line 8:

Comment=Browse your virtual C:\ drive

Would you say that \{@\} or {@} would be better?

As for the wine thing, I'm not entirely sure what the problem is, coz the whole file looks like that:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Browse C:\ Drive
Name[sv]=Bläddra i C:\
Name[de]=Durchsuche C:\
Name[fi]=Selaa C:\-asemaa
Name[pl]=Przeglądaj napęd C:\
Name[ca]=Navegeu per l'unitat C:\
Comment=Browse your virtual C:\ drive
Comment[sv]=Bläddra i virtuella enheten C:\
Comment[de]=Durchsuche das virtuelle C:\ Laufwerk
Comment[fi]=Selaa virtuaalista C:\-asemaa
Comment[pl]=Przeglądanie wirtualnego napędu C:\
Comment[ca]=Navegeu per la vostra unitat virtual C:\
Exec=xdg-open .wine/dosdevices/c:
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=folder-wine
Categories=Wine;

My guess would be that kbuildsycoca4 only looks at the ones without the [] (those are the defaults, right?). So if I would choose German as a language it would pick those with [de] after em?

Anyway I will add the quotes for the wine file, about the other two I'll wait for your response

Cheers
Lain




Edit:

The following worked:

[Desktop Entry]
Name="Browse C:\\ Drive"
Name[sv]="Bläddra i C:\\"
...
Comment="Browse your virtual C:\\ drive"
Comment[sv]="Bläddra i virtuella enheten C:\\"
...
Exec=xdg-open .wine/dosdevices/c:
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=folder-wine
Categories=Wine;

With just Name="Browse C:\ Drive" it complained:

"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop, line 2: " "Invalid escape sequence "\ "."
"KConfigIni: In file /usr/share/applications/wine-browsedrive.desktop, line 8: " "Invalid escape sequence "\ "."

Sooooo,
felt lucky and tried altering those nasty '.desktop' files :

Query=https://blueprints.launchpad.net/{project,p,""}?searchtext={@}
Query=https://launchpad.net/people/?name={@}&searchfor={type,t,"both"}

Now `kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental' doesn't complain any more. But after restarting kde (logging out and in again) the problem persisted.

Well, I guess I'll post a report @ bugs.kde.org, some time tomorrow. Thanks again to you guys !

Cheers
Lain