Search & Launch favourites won't go away

[x-shaney-x]

I have been using the search & launch containment for a few days on the regular desktop form factor but it seems to have a major bug:

I added a few apps to the upper, favourites part of the containment (mainly to see how it would deal with more than can fit the screen width) but when I remove any, they are back again after a reboot or logging out and in.
I did delete the relevant config files and this time just added a couple and tried to remove them and the same thing happened.
I have also since tried it using the search & launch as part of the proper netbook form factor and again it does the same.

The only way I could get items to go permanently was to remove them and then manually open plasma-desktop-appletsrc and simply save it.
Unfortunately, the next time I tried this, the item was still listed in that file so I had to delete the item from it.

I should point out that I have KDE set to NOT remember sessions, in case that was a factor.

[Linkmaster]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

I'm not exactly sure why its doing this, though if it helps, I know how to make your Kubuntu desktop 'reset' back to defaults, and it should in theory fix the problem, since it will erase all changes made to the desktop. It won't mess with personal files and the such, but it will restore everything back to default.

mv /home/you/.kde /home/you/.kde.old

That code right there should reset everything, where "you" is your actual username. Also, there is a space between "/home.../.kde" and "/home.../.kde.old" just to make sure that its clear.

I hope that helps if you decide to try it

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

@ Linkmaster

You say it won't mess with personal files and such but what about any saved emails in kmail, calendar entries, contacts?

But yes, I have tried that but as soon as I add some favourites again and try to remove them, the same thing happens.

Just to be clear, I CAN remove the favourites but they return after a reboot.
The odd thing is, I can remove the favourites, carry on using the computer for several hours and everything will be fine but as soon as the desktop is restarted either via logout or shutdown, they just return.

I have also noticed it occasionally happen with items I have added to the panel, though in this case it tends to be launchers I have ADDED to the panel or gone after a reboot.

Also, I will add a panel spacer between launchers and pager, for example and the space will have moved along the panel to be making a space somewhere else.
It's all very screwy and no amount of moving .kde and checking permissions solves it.

[Linkmaster]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Concerning Kontact and Kmail, I can give no guarantee, since I've never needed to do it while using either. But at this point, it sounds a little out of my grasp..if moving the .kde.old file over doesn't do anything, I am useless. I love KDE, but I don't know its inner workings yet, so I'm not the best to help on this post, though I tried

[The Liquidator]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

I can't be sure but I suspect that you have kde setup to open an existing session on startup. This might contribute to this.
Go to system settings/startup and shutdown/session manager and select "start with an empty session". What happens then?

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Well I did mention in the first post that KDE is set NOT to remember sessions
I have not and never will use saved sessions.

Anyhoo, I decided to move my entire home directory and see what happened.
After rebooting, everything was working as it should so seems to be something going wrong or conflicting somewhere.

I will copy back some essential stuff (kmail/calendar/firefox profile etc) back and hopefully everything will be behaving now.

[The Liquidator]

Re: [SOLVED] Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Oops! Sorry 'bout that

That'll teach me not to try answering questions in the morning!

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Hmm, spoke too soon.

Some time later and adding removing favourites, they are acting up again
Not only that, several other problems I thought had been solved are back, along with some new ones.

Kubuntu + KDE 4.6 just isn't working for me.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Could it be that the problems returned after you moved your stuff back, i.e you could have put the problem back too?

What are the other issues you are facing?

The way to reset .kde and its apps is to rename the folder /home/.kde/share/config or files therein. If you just want to reconfigure the plasma desftop rename those with plasma in the title. That will create a virgin desktop which may fix your S & L issue. Is this your only desktop? If so maybe you might get a better result if you ran the netbook interface instead (system settings /workspace). You might need to install the plasma-netbook package. If you want to go back you simply switch it back.

So far as your raw data is concerned eg mails and contacts etc, this will be unaffected but you will need to reconfigure the apps.

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

The only things I had moved back were my kmail and digikam configs but I have since tried yet again with a completely new home folder again.

Everything seems fine after moving the home folder but as I start getting things set up, such as launchers on panels OR favourites in search & launch it all goes wrong.

Forgets my favourites or won't let me get rid, moves panel items - often from one side of the panel to the middle etc, won't let me delete panel items or desktop widgets, widgets don't register any kind of interaction, whether locked or not, widgets appearing in the "add widgets" dialogue one minute then not there the next time I look, apps not showing up in kmenu searchbar - including major apps like dolphin/konsole etc, the list goes on and that's only the desktop related stuff.

Other things, when I log out I just get a black screen and no login screen, after moving the home folder I was able to logout and in again with no problems but now it's returned.

Really don't know what's going on.
I have done plenty off googling and I'm not finding much in the way of results which leads me to believe it is something specific to my own installation.
The fact that even deleting my home folder doesn't help leads me to think there is some major, system-wide problem but I really don't know where to start tracking it down and to be honest, I really don't want to.
I want to use my computer for things I want to do, not endlessly fixing one problem after another.
So looks like a reinstall or since the problems aren't exactly fatal, struggle on til the Natty release.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Couple of questions....

I know you say you are running KDE 4.6. Are you running 4.6.0 or 4.6.1? If the former, I recommend you upgrade.

Do these things happen simply when you are running search and launch, or also with the generic desktop? Have you tried the netbook workspace? Irrespective of this, is the package plasma-netbook installed? Given that search and launch is the primary component of netbook, I wonder whether the package might be needed for full search and launch functionality/stability.

Apart from that, I'm out of ideas, sorry

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Yes this does affect all desktop aspects, not just the search and launch.
I really don't like the whole netbook interface because of the panel, I prefer to setup the panel my own way and not have it autohide, which I can't seem to change otherwise.

However, I have given it a try long enough to notice it DOES have the same problem with the favourites.

The version of KDE is from the backports repo which I think is 4.6.1.

I was trying a fully upgraded natty testing install last night and so far, it isn't giving me ANY of the problems I'm having in my current version, which is the same version of KDE I believe so it does indeed look like something is messed up on my current install, rather than a KDE problem as such.
If it keeps on behaving, I will carry on using natty for the time being, it seems pretty stable and should tide me over til release.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

I think the auto-hiding panel in the netbook interface is by design and tied in with applications being launched full screen by default, so I expect you would never be able to change that.

I agree that it seems to be something specific to your setup. It's interesting (and encouraging) that the problem disappeared when you upgraded to the Natty Alpha. Hope all goes well for you with it.

[x-shaney-x]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

Argh! When I came to start configuring the natty install for use, everything still seemed ok other a few app crashes I would expect with an alpha but then I came to setup kmail and it brought with it a familiar and much more infuriating problem:

The effing akonadi self test box that I have had to fight with and google the problems with every KDE update.
Kubuntu is the only distro that has given me these endless akonadi issues and this is once and for all the final nail in the kubuntu coffin for me I'm afraid.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Search & Launch favourites won't go away

I share your pain on this one. There is a way to avoid those self-test errors. I found that the wayy to do it was to allow akonadi to reconfigure itself.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3114106.0

However, have you thought of using Thunderbird and (if you need Calendar) the Lightning extension instead of kmail? I diid this for other reasons (google calendar support for one). You can then stop akonadi running at startup and get rid of the problem altogether.