[SOLVED] White square on desktop

[Josephus]

Not sure if this is the right place for this...I have been a Linux user since way back to Ubuntu 10.04..Not many problems I haven't seen. .Currently using Kubuntu 20.04, and I have to say I think it's the best yet, so customizable!

Problem: a white square about 2x2 inches just appears randomly on the desktop, and no matter what I do it won't go away. Reboot doe not help, and it only appears on the desktop, but not on any apps' screen. It's usually empty but once it had some random letters (don't ask me which) in it. It appears in random places on the screen, but only one occurrence each time.

The only way to clear it is to do a system restore from backup, not a big deal, but not something i want to do all the time. . Does it on 2 different PCs with 2 different monitors, both running Kub 20.04. Only happens randomly and for no apparent reason. Anybody got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

(merged with duplicate posting

[Snowhog]

Sounds like a Notes (?) widget ‘empty’ note. Can you right-click on it and get a pop-up actions menu?

[Josephus]

I don't think it's notes, I don't have it installed...I'll do screenshot next time it happens and send it to you. Thanks for your response.

[jlittle]

It's likely some kind of widget, if it's not a Notes one.

If right-click doesn't let you remove it, a "long press" might; click and hold on it.

[Josephus]

When I changed to another mouse, it happened again! This time I clicked and held and I got the regular dialog, I chose quit and the window closed!
BTW, it was a "notes" file, but I can't understand why as it's not installed... also it was filled with dots (.............)... thanks for the answer!

Now, how do I close this topic?

[oshunluvr]

A couple of things to try (in order);

1) In System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Desktop Session, observe if "When logging in > Start with an empty session" is selected, If it is NOT selected, select it, save and log out and back in. If "Start with an empty session" IS selected or if switching to it does not solve the problem, see #2.

2) Try opening Konsole and enter xkill This will change your icon to a little skull and crossbones. Then click on the offending white box and see what happens. You may end up killing your desktop session so be prepared to reboot. If the white box goes away, then log out and back in to see if it returns. If not - #3

3) Typical first test for this kind of thing is to create a second user (I actually keep one on my system named "test") and see if the white box is there also. If not, then it's likely a desktop widget gone wild. You may have to wipe your plasma settings and start over.

Please report what you discover.

[Josephus]

Answered right above your post. Thanks anyway.