[Bug?] KDE-color-scheme resets itself

[Caaarl]

Hello Forum,

this time I think I have found a rather annoying Bug in Kubuntu 12.10.
Every now and then my color-scheme is being resetted for a (default?) dark-blue one. I have tried to google it and found nothing.
What I found was a video which showed a typical "reset" as I experience them on my system.
The funny thing is that some actions seem to trigger the reset, eg. starting a download in rekonq or (like in the video) choosing a different color-scheme and then marking another one.

Link to Vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K3uqqYDfcY

Has anyone else experienced such behaviour? Or knows of a workaroung/fix for this?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/help.

[Dutchman]

On occasion KDE seems to have trouble resetting it's cache files. KDE keeps a lot of things cached in your /var/tmp/kdecache-username (where username is your user's name), including old user settings like icon and color configurations. I'm sure the idea is if you ever want to revert back, it's faster for KDE to pull it from a cache than to rebuild it, but these caches often end-up causing odd behavior.

When I've gotten odd interface behavior in the past this is what I've done to fix it:
Log out of KDE and at the login screen press <ALT>+<CTRL>+F3 to go to a command shell.
Enter my username then my password at the prompts
Then enter the following command:

sudo rm -r /var/tmp/kdecache-rob

Change "rob" to your username. This will delete all of the existing caches. Type "exit" at the command prompt, then press <ALT>+<CTRL>+F7 to return to the login screen. Log back in to KDE. It will take longer for KDE to start-up, as it has to rebuild it's caches from config files, but it always cured my interface behavior problems.

[Caaarl]

Thanks for answering^^
I have just tried deleting the cache (I believe i have done this bevor on an older installation of Kubuntu 12.10 but using "kdesudo dolphin"), but it did not work.
When I logged back in i tested it by choosing a different colorscheme. After applying it I clicked on a randon object and there was the default-scheme again...

I also tried running Kubuntu 12.10 in Live-CD-Mode in Virtualbox. I tried changing colorschemes or starting a download (which would usually get me the error on my installed version) but the scheme stayed the way it is supposed to be. So the error does not seem to occur in Live-CD-Modes.
(Though I dont know if this is any help...)

[Dutchman]

I seriously doubt it's a bug in KDE, I still lean towards a corruption in a cache or temporary file that KDE keeps reading back into memory. The fact that you don't have any problems with the live CD points to it not being a corruption with the install media itself, so we have to look elsewhere.

There are two more places where KDE keeps temporary files and settings, both in the /tmp directory. One is called "kde-username", the other "ksocket-username". I would do what I first suggested again, delete the cache, and then also delete these two directories. After that reboot from the login screen or right from the command console, so you're sure to clear everything out of memory. Then see if the problem still occurs. Be sure when you do the deletions, not to do them from Dolphin or within KDE at all, or they'll just be restored. Log totally out of KDE and use a command console.

If the problem is still there, the next step would be to create a temporary new user, and log in as that user. See if you can recreate the behavior as a new user. If it still occurs, then I think it would be safe to say there's something wrong with the installation. We could try and diagnose it further, but that could take more time that it's worth, it would probably be easier at that point to download another .iso and do a re-install. For now though, try deleting those three directories and rebooting, that should fix the problem.

[Caaarl]

Hello again^^

I just deleted /tmp/kde-"user" and /tmp/ksocket-"user" via command console but also with no effect. After rebooting and logging back in the same bug occured again, when changing color-scheme.
Will try creating another user now.

EDIT: Have just created and tested another user. This time on changing the color-scheme there was no reset. So it seems that my settings are causing this...
Is it safe to remove all hidden kde-config-files and -folders in my user-directory without reinstalling Kubuntu? Or do I have to reinstall completely?
Oh yeah and which folders and files are the ones containing kde-user-settings? Because I'd really like to keep my application settings
Btw: my /home/"user" is on a separate partition. I also have one with / and a swap partition.

[Dutchman]

Here's what I would try, again, doing this from a command console:

mv /home/username/.kde/share/config /home/username/.kde/share/config_old

Change "username" to your user. This will rename KDE's configuration folder, allowing KDE to create a new one when you log back in. Everything will revert to default. Try changing the color scheme and make sure it's staying. If it is, you can use Dolphin to start putting individual config files back. Open Dolphin and turn on "Show Hidden Files" so you can see the ~/.kde folder and go to the new "config" directory. Use the "Split-View" in Dolphin to open the "config_old" directory. Copy anything back from the old directory that doesn't exist already in the new directory. That should give you back most if not all of your application customizations. Once everything is back, check again to make sure you can change colors and the changes stick.

[Caaarl]

After moving the config-folder to config_old and logging back in the error occured again.
So it does not seem to be located in /home/user/.kde/share/config

[Dutchman]

Well this has been perplexing! I may have found an answer though. I've been looking through all my user settings files, and came across "~/.config/Trolltech.conf". I knew this file had something to do with Qt settings, but didn't know exactly what. After a lot of Googling and not finding a definitive answer, I came across this, in the Arch Linux wiki, which helps explain some of what it does. In a nutshell it sets a lot stuff for things using the Qt toolkit, which KDE uses. A lot of the text in the Arch wiki is about customizing Qt apps, and using Trolltech.conf to do it. From what I read both in the wiki and on other sites, it has the ability to override other settings. I think, I hope, that if you delete this file it may clear-up the problem.

I would again do it from the command console, just to be safe. But go to the link I put above and see if you agree it might be the culprit. It's under "Manual Configuration". Being the problem doesn't show up on the Live CD or with a new user, we know it's something in your user settings, most of which were in the KDE config folder you already tried. There's not a lot of other things left, so hopefully this will do it.

[Caaarl]

Success !
Deleting the Trolltec.conf seems to have done the trick. I'll keep on testing, but for now, this Bug seems fixed.
Thanks a lot, Dutchman^^

It was a hard thing for me to accept the ever-changing color-scheme since I really like a consistent look.
Again, thanks a lot ^^

[Dutchman]

I'm glad it worked. Thanks for sticking with it Caaarl, it helps when others can come to the forum and find a solution that you invested time in finding. Now if I can ask a favor of you? You should be able to edit your original post, would you change the title to add "[SOLVED]" to it? That way anyone with a similar problem in the future will know there's a possible solution here. Thanks.