Kubuntu programs with no icons if not started with kdesu root (Solved)

[wxnker]

I hope someone can help me solve this problem. Any suggestions are very very VERY welcome.

I recently lost some toolbar icons/buttons in Amarok. In fact I lost toolbar icons in several kde applications.

In most applications I can fix this by right clicking the icon area and choose
"Icon Size = Medium" instead of "Icon Size = Standard". I had to do this manually for a lot of kde applications.

But in Amarok it's not possible to do this. It's not possible to right click and change the icon size. Even if I go to the "Toolbar setup" and change the icons manually, nothing happens. The "play, stop, previous, stop" buttons are gone. Also buttons/icons for directory browsing are gone (see 2. sceenshot).

First of all I do not understand why the icons were suddenly missing. I had to fix it in nearly all programs. Except for Amarok I can make it work by using the mentioned right click and change icon size method.

A reason for this happening could be the fact that I was trying out Compiz but I removed Compiz again and now I have this problem. It could also be an update though, as I update "Feisty" everytime there are new updates available. I have reverted to my back up xorg from before trying Compiz.

I have attached a couple of screenshots of amarok with missing "play, stop. previous, next" buttons, to show what I am talking about.

- What could be the problem?
- The problems are in all KDE applications, but in Amarok I don't know how to fix it. Could the problem be related to Konqueror? I'm quite new to Kubuntu so I do not know if KDE applications use Konqueror to showing the open windows?
- Could the problem be a graphical setting, windows manager, display manager, xorg?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards
wxnker

[wxnker]

Re: amarok - missing buttons and icons

Well I just found out that if I start the applications with ROOT access then the icons and buttons are working.

I was wondering why "Kate" kept loosing the toolbar icons when started normally but when started in the terminal with "sudo kate" the icons were there.

So I tried "sudo amarok" and then the buttons and icons work perfectly.

I guess I'm getting closer to the solution but I do not understand what's wrong.

I checked for user access of my home folder and I have full user access.

Can someone please suggest what could be wrong?

[claydoh]

Re: KDE Kubuntu programs with no buttons and icons if not started with sudo root

running some gui apps with sudo (that normally don't need to be/shouldn't be - amarok for one) can bungle up things that way, I cannot explain exactly how, but I have done this myself in the past. Basically the config files get messed up. One way to test this is to go to your .kde directory (a hidden folder in your user's home folder) and browse around /.kde/share/apps and possibly/.kde/share/config and move some files to your trash temporarily (or rename them).

For example: rename ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok, restart amarok and see if that fixes things. Try the same for kate or any other apps you have this issue with to see if it fixes the problem. To prevent this from happening, you need to run any gui app that needs admin privileges using 'kdesu' instead of 'sudo', and be sure you don't run compiz or amarok using sudo/kdesu at all

[wxnker]

Re: KDE Kubuntu with no buttons and icons if not started with kdesu root

Thank you for your reply. I'm going to bed now but I will try your suggestions tomorrow.

I'd like to add that I do not normally run programs like "Amarok" with kdesu or sudo. I just did it to test if the Icons/buttons would appear like normal. And they did.
But thank you for warning me

I also use kdesu normally and not sudo (gksudo). The sudo part was merely a typo, or an old Gnome habit. I'm still a bit new to KDE

[wxnker]

Re: KDE Kubuntu programs with no buttons and icons if not started with sudo root

Thank You claydoh.

Deleting files from ./kde/share/config helped. I'm not sure which particular files caused the problems because I moved several to a temporary folder. I only left files behind that I knew I needed. That is Kontact, Kmail, Kicker etc. files. I removed most of the rest.

Did a CTRL+ALT+Backspace and everything is back to normal. I moved themes related files as well so now I just have to setup the wallpaper and theme again and everything is perfect.

Once again... TY so much. Problem solved and I learned quite a bit from your suggestions as well.