Plasmashell (taskbar) does not work

Despite of updated system, old solutions (Plasma taskbar disappeared) which don’t work now, plasmashell/taskbar stopped working/loading.

Details:

$ inxi -Fb
System:    Host: roman-pc Kernel: 5.10.34-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.4
           Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: G3 3779 v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
           Mobo: Dell model: 04R93M v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell v: 1.2.1 date: 07/18/2018
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 18.7 Wh (100.0%) condition: 18.7/56.0 Wh (33.4%)
CPU:       Info: 6-Core model: Intel Core i7-8750H bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 9 MiB
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 801 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800
           7: 800 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 12: 800
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 630 driver: i915 v: kernel
           Device-2: NVIDIA GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] driver: nvidia v: 460.73.01
           Device-3: Realtek Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting,nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 1060 with Max-Q Design/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 460.73.01
...

Current behavior:

$ kquitapp5 plasmashell && kstart5 plasmashell
"Application plasmashell could not be found using service org.kde.plasmashell and path /MainApplication."
$ plasmashell &
[1] 3322
$ kf.plasma.quick: Applet preload policy set to 1
trying to show an empty dialog
file:///usr/share/plasma/shells/org.kde.plasma.desktop/contents/views/Desktop.qml:146:19: QML Loader: Binding loop det
ected for property "height"
file:///usr/share/plasma/shells/org.kde.plasma.desktop/contents/views/Desktop.qml:146:19: QML Loader: Binding loop det
ected for property "height"
Plasma Shell startup completed
  1. What’s the output of:

    ls -alh /bin/plasmashell
    
  2. Does this also happen when you create a new user and login there? (E.G. romanperekhrest2)

:thinking:

$ ls -alh /bin/plasmashell
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 562K кві 6 16:37 /bin/plasmashell

  1. When I switch to another test user (within the same group) - the taskbar is there.

So something is wrong somewhere in your user’s KDE settings and finding out what is going to take forever. Therefore, we’re going to do the following:

  • Verify that the new user has access to the same groups as your old one by executing groups and comparing the output of both users.

    groups romanperekhrest
    groups romanperekhrest2
    

    (Where obviously, romanperekhrest is your old user and romanperekhrest2 is your new one.)
    E.G. if romanperekhrest is a member of operator and romanperekhrest2 isn’t, execute:

    usermod --append --groups operator romanperekhrest2
    
  • Copy all data files from your old profile into your new one

    cp --verbose --recursive --preserve=time-stamps /home/romanperekhrest/Documents/* /home/romanperekhrest2/Documents/
    

    If that worked and you had no errors, remove the documents from your old user:

    rm --recursive /home/romanperekhrest/Documents/*
    

    repeat for:

    • Pictures
    • Videos
    • Music
    • .thunderbird
    • .mozilla/firefox/
    • Templates, and everything else that is important to you.
    • Linux games like Battle of Wesnoth have their game data stored under ~/.local/share/ E.G. ~/.local/share/wesnoth/

    After everything has been copied over, disable the old user so you cannot accidentally log on:

    usermod --lock romanperekhrest
    

    If you would have theming going on, don’t do everything in one day but do this at the rate of 1 application / theme / whatever per day and if the same issue crops up again, roll back your last change.

  • in 1 month delete the entire home directory of your old user, but don’t delete the user itself so that in 6 months time files still owned by that user will still show up under its username.

  • If you ever migrate to a new machine, just don’t migrate the old user: only the new one.

  • From now on, start making backups so you can roll back and never have to do this again:

Thanks, but my configuration is more complicated as I have an SSD + HDD system where SSD is dedicated to root, home, swap and system files and a bunch of links are set for most frequently used folders (Documents, Music, Videos etc.) directing to HDD partitions (following the optimal strategy)

A sample of current path:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 roman roman 15 лют 23 2019 /home/roman/Documents -> /data/documents

There’s also another custom links (within the same partition) set by third-party programs like:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 roman roman 37 тра 10 2019 "/home/roman/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives" -> /home/roman/.PlayOnLinux//wineprefix/

Are there any alternative workarounds/resolutions?

Sorry, it seems like hacking ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc made the taskbar appear again now; in resetted view without widgets but at least it showed up. Don’t know how to avoid such a issue in future.
Grazie.

1 Like

:+1:
Because that’s the bit I didn’t like doing but I’m glad my guidance made you do the heavy lifting! :grin:

  1. In that case, you could just have created a new symlink to your documents in the new profile.
  2. If you never share your computer, this is fine, but if you ever need someone else working on your computer, you should use something like /data/user/documents because that’s the way I run too (but only Music and Videos of a single user is on the HDD and all the rest is on the SSD), but if I wanted to, I could put any other user on the HDD too.

Ласкаво просимо !

:wink:

1 Like

I’ve marked this answer as the solution to your question as it is by far the best answer you’ll get.

However, if you disagree with my choice, please feel free to take any other answer as the solution to your question or even remove the solution altogether: You are in control! (If you disagree with my choice, just send me a personal message and explain why I shouldn’t have done this or :heart: or :+1: if you agree)

:innocent:
P.S. In the future, please don’t forget to come back and click the 3 dots below the answer to mark a solution like this below the answer that helped you most:
Solution
so that the next person that has the exact same problem you just had will benefit from your post as well as your question will now be in the “solved” status.

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