Dekstop effects will not turn on

[Frank616]

Just did an 'in place' upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04. For the most part, it worked, and I'm now addressing some issues. One of those is that I usually use the desktop cube, and while I have desktop effects turned on, and cube selected, the pager just switches from one desktop to the next. No animation of any kind -- not even 'slide'. It turns out that desktop effects are not turned on, and when I try to turn them on, I get an error message (see screenshot). When I click on 'details' for the error message, it just says that technical limitations don't allow for a full explanation (or similar), and below that, it just reports that desktop effects are not turned on.

I am using the recommended nVidia driver for this machine.

A second item is that with 12.04, my wallpaper would show up translucently behind the panel / kicker (whatever they call it now). In the screenshot, you see that it is now just medium grey. I see no way to change that.

Thanks.

Frank.

[whatthefunk]

In the same screen as in your screenshot, go to the advanced tab. What compositing type is set?

[schnelle]

Reset desktop effects to default settings:

rm ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc

kwin --replace &

If it doesn't help than clean cache too:
1) Logout
2) Ctrl+Alt+F1 and login
3) sudo service lightdm stop
4) rm ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc
5) cd /var/tmp
6) sudo rm -r kdecache-*
7) sudo reboot

p.s. I am giving this advice often lately on various forums/irc. Kwin seems to get corrupted often after upgrading to newer version of KDE.

[Frank616]

schnelle:

Thanks for the suggestion. However, if I reset this, will I lose my customizations on the desktop?

I wouldn't think so, as this appears to be just the config for kwin, not the whole desktop. However, I think it prudent to ask as I did the 'in place' upgrade to begin with so as NOT to lose all I had customized.

Thanks.

Frank.

[BobTreat]

Can you click the Advanced Tab and if Composting type says XRender, select one of the OpenGL's from the dropdown? Apply it,,,reboot. Has KWin crashed as a result? Are you booting an old kernel?

[schnelle]

schnelle:

Thanks for the suggestion. However, if I reset this, will I lose my customizations on the desktop?

I wouldn't think so, as this appears to be just the config for kwin, not the whole desktop. However, I think it prudent to ask as I did the 'in place' upgrade to begin with so as NOT to lose all I had customized.

Thanks.

Frank.

You will only reset desktop effects to default settings and number of desktops to 1 desktop (1 desktop is default now, you can easily re-add them).

[Frank616]

All:

OK, fixed....

I ran a rather arcane set of commands that cleans up old kernels, as after the in-place upgrade that I did, GRUB seemed to want to use the 12.04 kernel by default. I had posted about this in a different thread here.

The command is:

   dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d' | xargs sudo apt-get -y purge

In my notes about this set of commands (which I make no claim to understand in any way) it appears that this will also run update-grub. So I ran it....

EVERYTHING is now fixed.

Grub chooses the 14.04 kernel by default (which is also the only one now in the list)

My desktop effects work again -- but with the Nouveau driver. Among other things, the nVidia driver was removed, and Nouveau was installed. Not sure if the above command did that, or if it was one of the suggestions that were given to me while trying to run it. I got a few error messages, and those suggested other commands, which I also ran. I wonder if the nVidia driver is not up to scratch yet for this new release, and that this was a major part of my troubles to begin with.

The wallpaper now shows translucently behind the panel / kicker.

I really should have kept that terminal open and copied what transpired....

Frank.