[SOLVED] Task Manager dissappeared and I've lost all settings

[CharlieDaves]

Help, please, help me. (Fifth Element)
I noticed yesterday that my task Manager, start menu button had disappeared. I wasn't all that bothered, as I had just used zoom to zoom in.
Today it's annoying me as I can't do anything. I reset the running computer, and managed (after several attempts) to that menu thing and selected the previous version. I was unable to fix or repair anything due to weird error messages.

This PC setup is my HTPC, and all my custom colors that took 3 days to setup, are gone... Along with task manager settings, and now after adding the task manager I have a whole bunch of god knows what icons, like vault, and clipboard remembering everything I do. This is just a mess, and frastruating example of MS infecting Linux.
Zoom has gone, it's like everything is reset to default or something worse.

Is there any way to get them back, please.

Are there any know reasons why this might have happened, like a virus or something

Thanks
Charles

[CharlieDaves]

I once again managed to get into that recovery thingy, and I did the enable network then repair something, and guess fing what. This stupid repair thing reinstalled libre office, kcontact, and a bunch of other garbage I had actually removed as I don't use it, need it or want.
What a truck load of garbage. Just a bad as MS Windows... Wow am I pissed, and not in the alcohol manner either.
Task Manager is still screwed up, and I have stuff I cannot identify to remove. Battery maintenance which is (Harry Potter) Blood Brilliant, as it's a desktop PC.
PS. Whom do I complain to about this garbage

[claydoh]

Big ba-da boom!
(could not resist)

You added back a default panel, which of course has the system tray, clock, etc. This is a stock part of Plasma desktop.
I have no idea what exactly you did in the recovery console, but I will guess that you installed/reinstalled a meta-package, such as kubuntu-desktop , which will install all the stock programs that come with Kubuntu, like Libreoffice.

No idea what you did, or how you may have lost color settings (which can be saved to a file,btw) but at the time you first posted, most of the users here are/were likely asleep, and thus not readily available to help you.
Those "weird error messages" are important, and would have been extremely useful to start troubleshooting

To be honest, perhaps a bit brutally so (not my intention), this is very likely a PEBKAC issue (most of us here having been there numerous times ), and not the 'MS-infection' BS you keep ranting about, especially as most of KDE's features go back decades .



For the moment, I can give a few tips that may help in the future.

if you don't have a panel, there is always krunner - alt-spacebar or alt-f2. With this you can open a program, or do a function. Just type the name of the program, or the action - like 'restart', for example.
Error messages are always worth recording, even with a photo, screenshot, etc.
Backups of one's home dir are also helpful - I just got burned by this one, with a fried NVME drive and an out of date set of backups (err....being a lazy sod, rather)

[CharlieDaves]

Big ba-da boom! (could not resist)

I try humor and get weird thoughts when very pissed off about something.

No idea what you did, or how you may have lost color settings (which can be saved to a file,btw)

Um How please

but at the time you first posted, most of the users here are/were likely asleep, and thus not readily available to help you.

Forgiven but the dark is night

Those "weird error messages" are important, and would have been extremely useful to start troubleshooting

Yeah I know, I just couldn't figure out how at the time. I couldn't find my tablet.

this is very likely a PEBKAC issue

Maybe. I just noticed how Task Manager had vanished when I was attempting to shut down before heading to bed, a few nights ago. All I did was watch a couple of movie's. I didn't even update
Is this repaired with a smack on the back of the head? Any suggestions on self smack head.

and not the 'MS-infection' BS you keep ranting about.

I was reading a few weeks ago about some new, revamped exploit in video files or something. I use Linux, so not that bothered, but still interested. I had one back in the XP days

Backups of one's home dir are also helpful

as in the whole ~/home folder
Also, what is this "battery and brightness" never had that before, and how do I disable or remove it.
The clipboard is also a new annoying feature. I have clipboard on my main PC, but it doesn't keep popping up and saving everything.

[claydoh]

The clipboard (Klipper) has been a part of a KDE desktop since at least the KDE3 days, possibly KDE2 or even 1, so it is not new at all, 2002 at the latest
The battery widget in the systray is new (plasma 5.17 was only recently released), a redesign of the battery widget that adds access to screen and power settings.
All these can be disabled, force-hidden, forced-visible, or set to automatic, in the Systray settings via a right click on the tray's arrow thing on its right side.

[claydoh]

As for backups, all your application and desktop settings are in your ~/home, as are your files in most cases, barring other drives in one's system. Backing this up covers a lot of stuff.
All the hidden files and folders in there are your user, desktop, and application settings, theme files and customizations, email (if stored locally), and the like. The rest would be your files, if you save things to Documents, Pictures, Videos, etc.

[CharlieDaves]

Thanks for the assistance and help, claydoh

[jglen490]

As for backups, all your application and desktop settings are in your ~/home, as are your files in most cases, barring other drives in one's system. Backing this up covers a lot of stuff.
All the hidden files and folders in there are your user, desktop, and application settings, theme files and customizations, email (if stored locally), and the like. The rest would be your files, if you save things to Documents, Pictures, Videos, etc.

Agree wholeheartedly.

Backing up your data and configs (i.e., /home) is the most important system administration task you can do for yourself. Unless you back that area up, you will lose irreplaceable things.. I, too, have done that before, via the PEBKAC "solution", and did lose irreplaceable stuff as well as exceptionally difficult things to replace. I now have a rotating set of external plugable USB hard drives that I use to backup /home on a pretty rigorous schedule.

And for those of you who may employ snapshot-type change capture, while useful, that's not backup; it's specific position recovery.