Logout from KDE resets desktop to default?

Desktop Environments Plasma
1

Hello - hopefully I am not breaking any rules, I have searched around the internet for a solution to this but cannot find one.

I am a fairly new KDE plasma user (on endeavor os of course) and noticed when I accidentally hit the “logout” button from the DE GUI upon logging back in all of my DE customization is reset to default (wallpaper gone, widgets gone, taskbar moved to bottom, dark mode gone & themes/fonts/icons reset) and also some programs act like it is my first time using them (need to resetup).

When I normally put the computer to sleep/hibernate/reboot this is not the case, only when clicking “logout”. Can anyone help me with what is going on? Am I able to salvage my old DE customization after doing this?

Thank you.

2

Welcome to the forum.

That’s a rather strange issue you’re having, I haven’t encountered anything like it. I log out of my Plasma sessions all the time and I always get to keep my settings…

3

Normally I would assume you’re still running off the USB stick. . . but that would only be possible on XFCE. So, if nothing else, I’m here because I’m really intrigued what the issue could be.

can you post your inxi -Fxxxza --no-host

2 Likes
4

Thanks for the replies. I will post the output of that when I get home from work this evening!

One other note - I think when KDE gets updated once in awhile via pacman it does the same thing. It is very strange.

5

indeed very strange issue… looks like a “Kiosk Mode” in a way ?

1 Like
6

That shouldn’t be common but it can happen.

It is very, very strange that it happens on logout but not reboot.

I would try creating a new user account to test and see if the same behavior happens there.(Don’t copy anything from one user to another)

7

here is the dump from my inxi -Fxxxza --no-host

System:
  Kernel: 5.12.8-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux 
  root=UUID=bf0118fd-36ca-43ec-b8ea-e8c86e893878 rw quiet 
  cryptdevice=UUID=d79f1908-622d-42c0-9c4d-2826c932ae51:luks-d79f1908-622d-42c0-9c4d-2826c932ae51 
  root=/dev/mapper/luks-d79f1908-622d-42c0-9c4d-2826c932ae51 
  resume=/dev/mapper/luks-426759bb-6a5a-47d3-8a59-620196bc91e8 loglevel=3 
  nowatchdog 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.21.5 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: X510UNR v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: X510UNR v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends v: X510UNR.309 date: 05/14/2019 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 26.2 Wh (100.0%) condition: 26.2/42.1 Wh (62.3%) 
  volts: 11.5 min: 11.5 model: ASUSTeK ASUS Battery type: Li-ion serial: N/A 
  status: Not charging cycles: 180 
CPU:
  Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-8550U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: A (10) 
  microcode: E0 cache: L2: 8 MiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 32012 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 400/4000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 2135 
  3: 1355 4: 1064 5: 912 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: ASUSTeK driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5917 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: IMC Networks VGA UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-6:3 chip-ID: 13d3:5a07 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter> 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: 
  loaded: intel display-ID: :0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
  Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 143 size: 340x190mm (13.4x7.5") 
  diag: 389mm (15.3") 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.1.1 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 
  chip-ID: 8086:9d71 class-ID: 0403 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.12.8-arch1-1 running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 0.125.0 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.28 running: no 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: f040 
  bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:24fd class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
  bus-ID: 1-8:5 chip-ID: 8087:0a2b class-ID: e001 
  Report: This feature requires one of these tools: hciconfig/bt-adapter 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.14 TiB used: 86.41 GiB (7.4%) 
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST1000LM035-1RK172 
  size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  rotation: 5400 rpm serial: <filter> rev: SDM2 scheme: GPT 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 vendor: Micron model: 1100 MTFDDAV256TBN 
  size: 238.47 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  rotation: SSD serial: <filter> rev: A020 scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 221.1 GiB size: 216.63 GiB (97.98%) 
  used: 86.41 GiB (39.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0 maj-min: 254:0 
  mapped: luks-d79f1908-622d-42c0-9c4d-2826c932ae51 
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) 
  used: 428 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdb1 maj-min: 8:17 
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 17.07 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
  dev: /dev/dm-1 maj-min: 254:1 
  mapped: luks-426759bb-6a5a-47d3-8a59-620196bc91e8 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2700 
Info:
  Processes: 234 Uptime: 15m wakeups: 1 Memory: 15.52 GiB 
  used: 3.12 GiB (20.1%) Init: systemd v: 248 tool: systemctl Compilers: 
  gcc: 11.1.0 clang: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1410 lib: 324 flatpak: 0 
  Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.03
8

Hmm good idea, I will make a new user and do a quick customization and logout and back in and see if it does the same thing. Will report back with what I find.

9

Please format large output blocks in code format. It is very difficult to read other wise.

I did it for you but apparently you edited it out again.

10

My apologies, will fix. I posted and then realized I left some off so edited to paste output again and you must have edited in that meantime

1 Like
11

If some of the config files in your /home were unable to be written due to ownership, then it could cause this.

sudo chown username:username ~ -R

Where username is your user name.

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12

Will do a chown on the home directory as you stated. Is there some config file for KDE customization’s that needs to be preserved or backed up as well?

13

That resides in your home directory. It should remain unchanged.

14

KDE and most of the other DEs save files to ~/.cache , ~/.config, ~/.local. So you could examine the file modification times in there when you are operating, to see what is being modified and when. Particularly the .config files, as they are changed for your personal settings.

1 Like
15

ok so I did a chown on the home directory as @onyxnz recommended and then logged out and back in after making a few changes and things seemed to stay put…not sure if that was the solution but it appears to be working fine now?

The only other thing I can think is that KDE was updated via pacman and when I logged out and then back in previously it reset for some reason.

1 Like
16

Also attempted with a new user as recommended by @dalto and it seems fine when logging out and back in too.

Still unsure of root cause other than updating I suppose, but it has happened several times in the last 6-8 mos (enough that I finally wanted to post about it)

I will keep monitoring and see if I can determine what triggers it…

17

So next time it happens, do a check of who owns the Plasma files in those locations I gave you. If root (or another user?) does, then there must be a process/script that is taking over ownership somewhere along the way, and you will need to see what ran and when in order to find it. Updating doesn’t do this on it’s own, otherwise the reports would be rampant.
Great that you’re sorted now. Have fun!

18

Thank you! Will do, next time it happens I will look through those directories for ownership and when the last change was. Will report back to this post if/when it occurs. Fingers crossed that chown of ~ fixed it.

2 Likes