Weird behavior after manually changing a folder icon!

[ph4ntom74]

Hi guys, hope this is the right place to post this. I'm not really a new guy to *nix but iv never encounter this behavior when using KDE.

System information:

DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
Grub Version: 0.97-29ubuntu66
Kubuntu x64 installed along side with win7 pro x64
KDE - Platform Version 4.8.5 (4.8.5)

Desktop: (Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz)
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 4
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 30
Stepping: 5
CPU MHz: 1200.000
BogoMIPS: 5617.12
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 256K
L3 cache: 8192K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3

Video: AMD HD5850
RAM: 4Gb

Symptoms

After installing everything i need to work (not much really), iv customized the icons and and installed bettlejuice icon theme.
everything was good untill yesterday, when i was customizing a specific folder on my folder view desktop widget, every folder in the system now has the same symbol then the one i customized and i cannot change this back even if i hit "default" in the icon settings. Here is what i did:

i selected and right clicked the folder which is highlighted in the pic.
URL-hxxp://www.freeimagehosting.net/87kps

Selected the folder with the working man.
URL-hxxp://www.freeimagehosting.net/9jn2i

Now, all my folders in the system have the same folder!
URL-hxxp://www.freeimagehosting.net/mytf4


Can someone please give me a hint on how to fix this?

thank you for your time,

best regards,

NL

[claydoh]

Hmm.
I suggest trying to use the same steps you used and select the default icon, hopefully this gets you back to stock.

Then try changing the folder icon from within dolphin instead of the widget. Sounds like an interesting bug you found :eek:

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

[ph4ntom74]

Hmm.
I suggest trying to use the same steps you used and select the default icon, hopefully this gets you back to stock.

Then try changing the folder icon from within dolphin instead of the widget. Sounds like an interesting bug you found :eek:

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

yeah, i tried that but didn't work, lol.

guess im stuck with it.

edit:
can someone tell me in which file is located the information about every folder appearence?
like every folder with the same folder icon, where do i look for that line?

[claydoh]

I think it is ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktoprc

You will probably have to edit/rename the file while plasma-desktop is NOT running.
Moving or deleting all the plasma* rc files will get you back to a stock setup.

[ph4ntom74]

I think it is ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktoprc

You will probably have to edit/rename the file while plasma-desktop is NOT running.
Moving or deleting all the plasma* rc files will get you back to a stock setup.

so you mean if delete all those plasma related files, ill start out as default right?
this is what i got:
user@rpk:~$ ls -l ~/.kde/share/config/plasma*
-rw------- 1 phantom phantom 23284 Oct 20 20:13 /home/phantom/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc
-rw------- 1 phantom phantom 2086 Oct 20 17:31 /home/phantom/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktoprc
-rw------- 1 phantom phantom 2086 Oct 20 22:56 /home/phantom/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktoprc.BACK
-rw------- 1 phantom phantom 34 Oct 6 17:04 /home/phantom/.kde/share/config/plasmarc

should i delete these files and have no strange stuff happening and back to defaults?

NL

[claydoh]

Yes you would, but it is preferable to do sowhile KDE is not running, as these config files are usually cached, then written back to disk when logging out or rebooting, which will of course replace the ones deleted. But it is perfectly fine to try deleting them in KDE, but you will know why if you do not get the default desktop back.

[ph4ntom74]

Hey Claydoh,

can you tell me how can i delete all those plasma*rc files while kde is not running?
do i just change the run level ? i usually use sysv-rc-conf to manipulate startup services.
is that simple? One other thing, i most certainly changed the default icon but i dont know where to change the default icon!?!
where can i change the default icon back to normal?

thanks,

NL

Yes you would, but it is preferable to do sowhile KDE is not running, as these config files are usually cached, then written back to disk when logging out or rebooting, which will of course replace the ones deleted. But it is perfectly fine to try deleting them in KDE, but you will know why if you do not get the default desktop back.

[ph4ntom74]

by the way, i also see a strange behavior each time i grab and drag a window on my desktop.
there are coordinates appearing, check it out, lol:

[Snowhog]

System Settings > Desktop Effects > All Effects and uncheck WindowsGeometry.

[ph4ntom74]

well that was simple...thanks for the useful tip

[claydoh]

Hey Claydoh,

can you tell me how can i delete all those plasma*rc files while kde is not running?
do i just change the run level ? i usually use sysv-rc-conf to manipulate startup services.
is that simple? One other thing, i most certainly changed the default icon but i dont know where to change the default icon!?!
where can i change the default icon back to normal?

thanks,

NL

Oh, it is wayyy simpler than that advanced stuff
You log out of KDE, and log in to a different desktop, such as Unity or XFCE, etc if you have one installed on your system, use the native file browser (nautilus or whatever) and delete or edit the file as needed.
If you only have KDE, after logging out, hit ctrl-alt-f1 to bring up a terminal, log in, and then enter:

rm /home/<insert-username-here>/.kde/share/config/[SIZE=4][B]kdeglobals[/B][/SIZE]

NOTE that I found the correct file for resetting your default icon set to be the one in that command above. That might do the trick for you. If you feel comfortable, you can open that file outside of KDE and edit the [icons] section to replace what is there with 'oxygen '

Once done type "exit", ctrl-alt-f7 to get you back to your login screen, and log back in.


If you want/need to reset your desktop layout, widgets, colors, themes, effects etc then you can delete the plamsa* rc files

rm /home/<insert-username-here>/.kde/share/config/plasma*

You might want to open each file in Kate before logging out to see if there is any specific icon setting in there so you don't have to nuke everything if you don't want to.