KDE 4.10.X Desktop,Activities settings not persistent
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Registered Member 
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Hi all,
After upgrading my Linux OS which upgraded KDE to 4.10.2 (IIRC) and then subsequently 4.10.5, Desktop and Activities settings are not persistent between reboots. It always defaults to a "New Activity", and any Activites I created are either gone or are obviously corrupted with the only option being to delete them (except one won't even delete). Thinking that plasma-desktop may be crashing on exit, I log in, launch Konsole, and execute kquitapp plasma-desktop. That seems to work okay. But when I then execute kstart plasma-desktop &, I get this:
(Notice I have to Ctrl+C to get back to a command prompt.) And, after restarting plasma-desktop, some Activities show back up -- some corrupted, some not. I have searched for similar issues, but have found none. Any ideas what is causing this issue and what I might do to fix it? Thank you, T. Lee |
Administrator
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Rather unusual - nothing in that output is indicative of what the issue may be unfortunately.
Can you please try reproducing this issue under a new user?
KDE Sysadmin
[img]content/bcooksley_sig.png[/img] |
Administrator
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Check the contents of .kde[4]/share/config/activitymanagerc and post its contents here.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
 Plasma FAQ maintainer - Plasma programming with Python |
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Registered Member
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Thank you for your responses.
@bcooksley: Sorry that I did not mention previously that I had tested with a new user. I just double-checked, and a new user does not suffer from this issue. @einar: As you requested, here are the contents of .kde4/share/config/activitymanagerc :
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Registered Member
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Going further...
I deleted all but the very first of the 12 activities that had magically re-appeared last time. And then created 3 new ones so that I had a total of 4. Now, upon reboot, there has been "New Activity" created and made the active one. If I am reading it correctly, .kde4/share/config/activitymanagerrc shows that there should be 5 activities:
Yet, Activity Manager shows only three; the new one and two undefined:  
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Administrator
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Do you have any important data stored in Nepomuk, such as tags, etc? If not, you might want to try moving your Nepomuk data repository elsewhere.
You could also try resetting the activitymanagerrc file, as well as the plasma-desktop configuration files.
KDE Sysadmin
[img]content/bcooksley_sig.png[/img] |
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Registered Member
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Thank you for trying to help me figure this out.
I have had Nepomuk Semantic Desktop disabled for a while, but I did find [Service-nepomukfileindexer] set to autostart in .kde4/share/config/nepomukserverrc. I disabled that, then simply removed .kde4/share/apps/nepomuk. I also moved activitymanagerrc, activitymanager-pluginsrc, plasma-desktoprc, and plasma-desktop-appletsrc out of .kde4/share/config. I don't recall if I then did a logout, login or if I actually rebooted, but I ended up with a desktop with no Activity and no Panel. I added a Panel and some Activities. And, the problem still persists. By monitoring the contents of activitymanagerrc as root from virtual console 2 (Ctrl+Alt+F2), I have found that if I use Konsole and execute kquitapp plasma-desktop, kstart plasma-desktop &, things appear to work as (I think) they should, every time. But if I Leave (ie. logout, login), the system creates a "New Activity" upon login as if it is totally 'blind' to the Activities existing in activitymanagerrc; even though it adds the New Activity to that file leaving the others intact. Then, subsequently executing kquitapp plasma-desktop, kstart plasma-desktop & in Konsole brings the Activities back, but one is often corrupted in that it is stopped and will not restart. I am befuddled. |
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Administrator
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Very odd... I suspect Plasma Desktop or kactivitymanagerd might be crashing on logout, or alternately Plasma Desktop is starting faster than kactivitymanagerd is starting.
Could you try moving the contents of ~/.kde4/share/apps/activitymanager/ elsewhere, whilst outside KDE?
KDE Sysadmin
[img]content/bcooksley_sig.png[/img] |
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Registered Member
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Okay, I tried it while booted in Safe Mode. No luck.
And since I already have backups of the files, I also tried a fresh start by safe-mode removing: ~/.kde4/share/apps/activitymanager/* ~/.kde4/share/config/activitymanager* ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma-desktop* Again, no luck. I have also looked in /var/log/messages for any related error messages and found none. Is there a way to see if Plasma Desktop or kactivitymanagerd are crashing, or their startup sequence? I am gladly willing to continue trying to resolving this in case it may be a bug or if it may help someone else who may experience the same issue. But, at this point, I am wondering if it might be better, from a purely personal perspective and out of respect for your time, to just create a new user to work from and migrate my files and settings as needed. I am willing to try whatever you think may be best. Thank you. |
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Administrator
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I might have missed this, but which distribution are you using? I saw issues with Kubuntu myself (did not save activitymanagerrc correctly) but not with openSUSE.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
Plasma FAQ maintainer - Plasma programming with Python |
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Registered Member
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You didn't miss it, einar. I didn't mention it, because I thought it was a KDE issue. I first brought this up in the Mageia 3 forum, and they referred me here. If it were an issue of not saving activitymanagerrc correctly, wouldn't it also affect new users?
Using ps, I have determined that /usr/bin/kactivitymanagerd is starting as little as one second prior to kdeinit4: plasma-desktop [kdeinit]. I don't know if that's enough time, but at least the sequence is correct according to what bcooksley wrote. Looking throught the startup scripts (more like getting lost in the startup scripts), I see that /usr/bin/startkde will create ~/.kde4 if it does not exist. And I am thinking that this must be a configuration issue, because I have created two new user accounts and they are not afflicted. So, would it be too radical to simply move ~/.kde4 and try to start entirely fresh? Or is there something else I should try first? [Edit] I forgot to mention that I have tried stopping and restarting plasma-desktop, clearing out corrupted activities and leaving just one, verifying that activitymanagerrc appears to be correct, and then executing, from Konsole, kquitapp plasma-desktop, kquitapp kactivitymanagerd, reboot. I got no crash notices. But, upon logging back in, I still got a New Activity as before. |
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Registered Member
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Okay, here's what I've done.
While booted up in Safe Mode to ensure I was 'outside' of KDE, I moved ~/.kde4 to a backup location. Then switched to default mode and logged in to the troubled account. ~/.kde4 was rebuild and a Desktop activity was created along with one that was undefined and could not be deleted. I logged out and back in. The undefined activity was then gone. I created a new activity and then configured the wallpapers on the two activities as a test. Rebooting and logging out and back in now creates no phantom activities, and my two activities are present as they should be. Success! Since I may need to migrate some app settings, I still have the backup kde4 folder. So, I can do some forensic trouble-finding research if it might help figure out what caused this, just for future reference. Or, we can simply mark this topic as resolved if you wish. Thank you for taking the time to try to help me. T. Lee |
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