KDE auto changing wallpaper and removing widget

Hello,

Is there any know issue related to KDE Plama or Manjaro that is automatic changing desktop set up?

It’s a second time this weak, and just after the latest Stable update (19/nov/2021), I shut down my PC without any issue but when I do log on everything related to the desktop is changed, the wallpaper back to default one, the icon sizes back to default one, preview checkbox is marked, files in the the desktop are auto arranged in the grid and all my widget are gone. Very strange.

Below an image as I set up again

Below issued one back to standard configuration

System:
  Kernel: 5.16.0-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.16-x86_64
  root=UUID=dfa33105-8d9e-4555-9174-609a71216485 ro quiet apparmor=1
  security=apparmor resume=UUID=493ccde5-7f80-4bf5-b22c-98ce796aade6
  udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.23.3 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM
  Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: GA-870A-UD3 v: x.x
  serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Award v: F5 date: 08/01/2011
Battery:
  Message: No system battery data found. Is one present?
Memory:
  RAM: total: 7.76 GiB used: 2.45 GiB (31.6%)
  RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required.
CPU:
  Info: Quad Core model: AMD Phenom II X4 965 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: K10
  family: 10 (16) model-id: 4 stepping: 3 microcode: 10000C8 cache:
  L1: 512 KiB L2: 2 MiB L3: 6 MiB bogomips: 27333
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/3400 MHz boost: disabled Core speeds (MHz):
  1: 800 2: 3400 3: 800 4: 800
  Flags: 3dnow 3dnowext 3dnowprefetch abm apic clflush cmov cmp_legacy
  constant_tsc cpuid cr8_legacy cx16 cx8 de extapic extd_apicid fpu fxsr
  fxsr_opt ht hw_pstate ibs lahf_lm lbrv lm mca mce misalignsse mmx mmxext
  monitor msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl npt nrip_save nx osvw pae pat pdpe1gb pge
  pni popcnt pse pse36 rdtscp rep_good sep skinit sse sse2 sse4a svm svm_lock
  syscall tsc vme vmmcall wdt
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass status: Not affected
  Type: spectre_v1
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2
  mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
  vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0
  chip-ID: 1002:67df class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.21.1.1 compositor: kwin_x11 driver:
  loaded: amdgpu,ati unloaded: modesetting,radeon alternate: fbdev,vesa
  display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2")
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9")
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-0 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 96
  size: 510x290mm (20.1x11.4") diag: 587mm (23.1")
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon RX 570 Series (POLARIS10 DRM 3.44.0
  5.16.0-1-MANJARO LLVM 13.0.0)
  v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.5 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD SBx00 Azalia vendor: Gigabyte GA-880GMA-USB3
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383
  class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
  vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
  chip-ID: 1002:aaf0 class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.16.0-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.40 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
  vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 9e00 bus-ID: 06:00.0
  chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp6s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global
  broadcast: <filter>
  IP v6: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link
  WAN IP: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Message: No bluetooth data found.
Logical:
  Message: No logical block device data found.
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data found.
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.48 TiB used: 1.74 TiB (70.0%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: SanDisk model: SSD PLUS 240GB
  size: 223.58 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 00RL scheme: MBR
  ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Corsair model: Corsair Force GS
  size: 119.24 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 5.07 scheme: MBR
  ID-3: /dev/sdc maj-min: 8:32 vendor: Patriot model: Burst size: 223.57 GiB
  block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD
  serial: <filter> rev: KB.3 scheme: MBR
  ID-4: /dev/sdd maj-min: 8:48 vendor: Crucial model: CT120BX100SSD1
  size: 111.79 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
  type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: MU01 scheme: GPT
  ID-5: /dev/sde maj-min: 8:64 vendor: Western Digital model: WD20PURZ-85GU6Y0
  size: 1.82 TiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
  type: HDD rpm: 5400 serial: <filter> rev: 0A80 scheme: MBR
  Optical-1: /dev/sr0 vendor: HL-DT-ST model: DVDRAM GH22NS50 rev: TN02
  dev-links: cdrom
  Features: speed: 48 multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes
  rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 214.77 GiB size: 210.4 GiB (97.96%)
  used: 95.52 GiB (45.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdc1 maj-min: 8:33
  label: LINUX-SSD uuid: dfa33105-8d9e-4555-9174-609a71216485
  ID-2: /home/<filter>/Games raw-size: 111.79 GiB size: 109.47 GiB (97.93%)
  used: 61 GiB (55.7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdd1 maj-min: 8:49
  label: LINUX-GAMES uuid: ef7d7ba9-f8da-4419-b9a3-ca9e2232da86
  ID-3: /home/<filter>/HDD-DATA-2T raw-size: 1.82 TiB size: 1.82 TiB (100.00%)
  used: 1.58 TiB (87.0%) fs: ntfs dev: /dev/sde1 maj-min: 8:65 label: DATA_2T
  uuid: 28A6726FA6723CFE
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
  dev: /dev/sdc2 maj-min: 8:34 label: N/A
  uuid: 493ccde5-7f80-4bf5-b22c-98ce796aade6
Unmounted:
  ID-1: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 size: 100 MiB fs: ntfs label: System Reserved
  uuid: E680DA2C5F90FD24
  ID-2: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 size: 223.48 GiB fs: ntfs label: WIN-SSD
  uuid: 07492E03A516286B
  ID-3: /dev/sdb1 maj-min: 8:17 size: 119.24 GiB fs: ntfs label: WIN-GAMES
  uuid: EAE6EE7DE6EE4A01
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-5: 5-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 5 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-6: 6-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-7: 7-0:1 info: Full speed or root hub ports: 4 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0001 class-ID: 0900
  Device-1: 7-3:2 info: SINO WEALTH USB KEYBOARD type: Keyboard,HID
  driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 1.5 Mb/s
  power: 100mA chip-ID: 258a:0001 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: 7-4:3 info: Pixart Imaging Optical Mouse type: Mouse
  driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 rev: 1.1 speed: 1.5 Mb/s
  power: 100mA chip-ID: 093a:2521 class-ID: 0301
  Hub-8: 8-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 2 rev: 2.0
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
  Hub-9: 9-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 2 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 36.9 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 48.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 188
Info:
  Processes: 255 Uptime: 23m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl
  Compilers: gcc: 11.1.0 clang: 13.0.0 Packages: 1537 pacman: 1522 lib: 451
  flatpak: 15 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8 running-in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.09
1 Like

Unfortunately with Plasma this does happen every once in awhile. From what I’ve seen there really is no rhyme or reason to what causes it.

1 Like

Not really…
I havent seen it happen to me once.
Though, I did recently help someone who eventually admitted they were attempting to use a wallpaper from a windoze partition that was not auto-mounted (thus why they lost their wallpaper every reboot).

2 Likes

Do you guys know the command line to clear KDE Plasma cache? I could try that way.

1 Like

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Configuration_related

2 Likes

Then you got lucky. Like I said it’s rare but does happen.

I really think luck has little to do with it. Over years and multiple machines. But I hesitate to make this post for the way it sounds … ehhhh … please see the link above - “configuration related” …

1 Like

So I followed the procedure below.

Fortunately today when I logged in my desktop was as it should be.

Clean cache to resolve upgrade problems

The problem may be caused by old cache. Sometimes, after an upgrade, the old cache might introduce strange, hard to debug behaviour such as unkillable shells, hangs when changing various settings, Ark being unable to extract archives or Amarok not recognizing any of your music. This solution can also resolve problems with KDE and Qt applications looking bad after an update.

Rebuild the cache using the following commands:

$ rm ~/.config/Trolltech.conf
$ kbuildsycoca5 --noincremental

Lets see if don’t face the issue anymore.

Thank you for the support.

2 Likes