Desktop icons rearranged after activation of "Screen Energy Saving"

[fxrbch]

After upgrading from Kubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 the desktop icons on 3 completely different machines get rearrange after Screen Energy Saving gets activated. The layout on the desktop folder settings is set to Folder View. Here is how to reproduce the problem:

1. arrange desktop icons as you like
2. under Power Management activate Screen Energy Saving and set Switch off after to 1 minute
3. wait until the screen turns off and the monitor indicates "no signal"
4. move the mouse to turn on the screen again

Now all desktop icons are rearranged at the left side of the desktop. After restoring a previously made copy of .config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc, logging out and in again, the icons are again arranged the way they were after step 1.

[jlittle]

That's what happens if plasma can't write to.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc. I'd first suspect an ownership problem with that file, and by recreating it you took away the problem. However, that file has a convoluted structure, and IME some years ago it would get screwed up sometimes, and require resetting, losing the settings within it.

[fxrbch]

Adding, removing and rearranging icons on the desktop works fine and is perfectly remembered, even during reboots. Hence this is not a problem of .config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc not being writable.
As stated in my first post: the problem only exist when Screen Energy Saving is enabled and triggered.

[claydoh]

So, when you see this issue again, compare that config file's permissions and content to a known good copy you have made.

The layout on the desktop folder settings is set to Folder View

This is the default, as the "desktop" layout is more or less deprecated for some time, and is sort of useless today.
I say this a a decade+ user of that layout, and haven't had any sort of issue since moving over the the Folder view, still keeping a file- and icon-free desktop, the way some god somewhere in the multiverse intended )

I wonder if there are any bugs using this layout that might be a culprit or person-of-interest here?
Could the use of the energy savings setting be doing something odd, like changing a refresh rate or other setting

[fxrbch]

The permissions of the configuration file do not change. It is readable and writeable by the owner:

-rw------- 1 johndoe johndoe 18K Sep 24 17:31 plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc

For testing I have setup a simple desktop with just one icon. Here is the entire diff of the configuration file:

--- plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc.testing.good 2024-09-24 17:16:08.617067915 +0200
+++ plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc.testing.bad 2024-09-24 17:20:00.098298766 +0200
@@ -156,7 +156,7 @@
ToolBoxButtonState=topcenter
ToolBoxButtonX=1338
arrangement=1
-positions={"3840x2160":["28"\\,"14"\\,"desktop:/systemsettings.desktop"\\,"27"\\,"13"]\\,"1440x900":[""]}
+positions={"3840x2160":["1"\\,"14"\\,"desktop:/systemsettings.desktop"\\,"0"\\,"0"]\\,"1440x900":[""]}
previewPlugins=imagethumbnail,jpegthumbnail,svgthu mbnail
sortMode=-1

The .good file is before Screen Energy Saving gets activated, the .bad afterwards. The diff shows clearly the rearrangement of that one single icon.