(resolved for now)troubles with "social desktop" widget - need help

[bhamm77]

System
HP Pavilion 061 with dual boot, Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04 & Windows XP Professional SP3
model#: PU061AV
X-86 based PC
AMD Athlon 64 processor 3200+1.79GHz
1.25 GB of RAM
Video:NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (dedicated)
hard drive: Maxtor 6Y080M0, 60GB


This maybe something really simple that I should know, but here is what happened....

I was recently adding a few desktop widgets for a test drive. I installed the widget called "social Desktop", and my screen went black! All I have is a mouse cursor and a black screen. I cant get the widgwt to close because I have nothing to point my cursor to. Not really sue what to do from here. I can Ctrl+Alt+F1 into my command line, but I dont know how to disable the widget I have installed.

Does anyone know how I can remove this widget?

Your help is always appreciated

[Rog131]

Re: troubles with "social desktop" widget - need help

Yes the whole plasma desktop has habit to crash if it can't handle / there is a bug in the plasmoid.

Is this the "OpenDesktop" plasma widget ?
"OpenDesktop - Communicate using the Social Desktop"

Your KDE version ?


Something to try:

a) Removing the markings from the plasma configuration files.

Make sure that the plasma desktop is not running - shut the plasma off.

with the KDE 4.2 (konsole) : kquitapp plasma
with the KDE 4.3 (konsole) : kquitapp plasma-desktop

The applications that are not using plasma are still usable: Dolphn, Kate, Konsole, ...

Alt+F2 and type konsole (or dolphin or kate...)

The plasma-widgets (KDE 4.3) are writing to the ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc. With the KDE 4.2 ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc.

With the "OpenDesktop", the plasma-desktop-appletsrc has something like:

...
[Containments][1][Applets][48]
geometry=31,11,420,420
immutability=1
plugin=opendesktop
zvalue=2056
...

Remove those lines.

Start the plasma desktop:

with the KDE 4.3 (konsole) : plasma-desktop
with the KDE 4.2 (konsole) : plasma


b) A bit more invasive: Removing the plasma configuration files.

This will reset ALL plasma settings !

Make sure that the plasma desktop is not running - shut the plasma off.

(KDE 4.3) Rename/move or remove the plasma configuration files:

~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc
~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktoprc
~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc

(KDE 4.2):

~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc
~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc

Restart the plasma desktop.


c) Reset the whole KDE

This will reset ALL KDE settings !

Log out.

Log in by using the Ctrl+Alt+F1.

Rename the ~/.kde directory.

Log out.

Log in by the graphical interface: Ctrl+Alt+F7.

The KDE should start with the default settings. Your old settings are in the renamed ~/.kde directory.

[bhamm77]

Re: troubles with "social desktop" widget - need help

Is this the "OpenDesktop" plasma widget ?
"OpenDesktop - Communicate using the Social Desktop"

YES

KDE version 4.3

Thanks Rog131

was going to try your suggestions but ran into a couple of problems. See below...

a) Removing the markings from the plasma configuration files.

Make sure that the plasma desktop is not running - shut the plasma off.

with the KDE 4.2 (konsole) : kquitapp plasma
with the KDE 4.3 (konsole) : kquitapp plasma-desktop

unknown program?
(konsole)

ben@ben-desktop:~$ kquitapp plasma-desktop
<unknown program name>(25582)/: "Application plasma-desktop could not be found using service org.kde.plasma-desktop and path /MainApplication."

The applications that are not using plasma are still usable: Dolphn, Kate, Konsole, ...

Alt+F2 and type konsole (or dolphin or kate...)

BTW, thanks for this one. I didn't realize that I could do this. It was very good to know & will probably prove very useful in the future.

The plasma-widgets (KDE 4.3) are writing to the ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc. With the KDE 4.2 ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-appletsrc.

With the "OpenDesktop", the plasma-desktop-appletsrc has something like:

...
[Containments][1][Applets][48]
geometry=31,11,420,420
immutability=1
plugin=opendesktop
zvalue=2056
...

Remove those lines.

Start the plasma desktop:

with the KDE 4.3 (konsole) : plasma-desktop
with the KDE 4.2 (konsole) : plasma

Opened the file ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc (with Kate)

The lines that you referred to were not there.

I will post the contents if necessary, but for the sake of keeping the post readable I will only add it at your request.

Wanted you to see this outcome before I moved on to steps b & c. It is confusing that I could not shut-off the plasma desktop.

Any other suggestions before I move to step b or c?

*****EDIT*****


Solved the blackscreen problem Rog131. After attempting to quit plasma-desktop, I was wondering how to restart it because you didn't give that specific command. So I searched it...

plasma-desktop

simple enough huh? So I was wondering if plasma had already stopped & just needed to be restarted? After Alt-F2 & running the command, I have my desktop back. Open-Desktop was not enabled. (not a big deal, I will check into that later)

Yes the whole plasma desktop has habit to crash if it can't handle / there is a bug in the plasmoid.

It must have crashed my desktop as you guessed, but I was able to restart it. Thank you for your help!