Desktop Icons disappeared, icons in taskbar not working, slow log in

[Dabendan]

Hello folks,
writing on my phone, so I’m sorry if formatting is off.

I, stupid as I am, force shutdown(pressing the power button until computer turns off) my computer the other day. Now booting up is relatively normal speed wise but once I log into my user account, it takes longer than normal. Also the loading screen is still showing when an autostart app opens. Feels like it hangs after the loading bar reached 100%

The other problem is that my desktop icons “disappeared”. They are still in the desktop folder but they don’t show up on my desktop
I checked an “Layout: Folder View” is still active.

Also all icons in my taskbar don’t do anything. The loading symbol appears but the app won’t open. The icons of the application launcher don’t work either.

What works though is using Runner to open settings for example. Konsole works too to open things.

I wanted to upload a picture of the errors using journalctl -p3 -b but unfortunately I’m not allowed to:(

Thanks for the help!

PS.: Sorry for forgetting my specs!
Here are my specs using the command that Andreas suggested
[My specs on pastebin](System: Kernel: 6.4.6-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.1.1 - Pastebin.com

[andreas85]

You need to give some general info like:
What Desktop do you use ? KDE / Gnome / XFCE …

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Tip for the future:

Gentle shut down a suddenly hanged PC to minimize a chance of getting a broken filesystem and data loss:

[HowTo] reboot / turn off your frozen computer: REISUB/REISUO

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ This tutorial was created because people are using a hard power off during freezes, so this will teach you how to turn off your computer when everything is frozen using softer means. So whenever you see someone saying they had to “Power Off” or “Hard Reset” their system without doing a REISUB, please send them here! If you’re reading this in response to a question, please click the green link above this text to bring you to the full unabridged text of the tutorial…

https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/sysrq.html

[cscs]

Does the desktop behave the same with a new user?

[Dabendan]

Good question!
I just created a new user and there the desktop and taskbar etc seem to work just fine.

So maybe some bad config?

[jcorporon]

Sounds like you may have this issue:

KDE Plasma Completely dysfunctional

Complete Linux noob here. I started my computer after it was completely shut down, and I can log in fine but nothing will launch. I can’t launch konsole, dolphin, firefox, anything at all with the exception of the Add/Remove Software gui. I get no error messages, I click icons and get the spinning circle and then it stops and nothing further happens. At most I can right click my desktop and open desktop settings. I’ve shutdown completely, restarted, put into sleep, hard shut down, and nothing h…

The marked Solution will help if this is your issue.

[cscs]

I was pretty much going to suggest what @jcorporon sorta-linked …

Continuing the discussion from KDE Plasma Completely dysfunctional:

@cscs

cd ~/.config
for j in plasma*; do mv -- "$j" "${j%}.bak"; done
rm ~/.config/Trolltech.conf
kbuildsycoca5 --noincremental

And maybe the cache too?

rm -rf ~/.cache/*

Though of course you could backup the Trolltech file and/or the .cache folder instead of just deleting them.

And do note that it will remove your desktop configurations - you will have to set things again.
(or move back the files)