General nuisance with KDE Desktop

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello,
This seems to only happen to my desktop with NVIDIA GTX 1070.

I am currently running LEAP 15.0 with KDE, Nvidia Gfx04 has been installed from the community nvidia repository. Every once in a while, all of the desktop icons in my “Desktop” rearrange themselves in a strange manner.

There are also multiple cases reported online specifically for KDE:
https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=141902
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/desktop-icons-rearrange-themselves-after-reboot-on-kde-plasma/72866
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/5j096t/my_desktop_folders_keep_on_getting_rearranged_in/

This happens even:

  • without reboot, if the desktop has been on for long enough time.
  • without desktop resolution setting ever changing
  • with widget lock
  • with desktop icon lock
  • with “folder view” of the ~/Desktop
  • on LEAP 42.3 KDE
  • after LEAP 15.0 KDE fresh install

I spent some time trying to resolve it and I still haven’t.

From what I’ve read, my research suggests that it has something to do with NVIDIA driver failing/resetting xserver, display resolution, or most likely a known bug with plasma.

This doesn’t totally hinder my work, but it is starting to really annoy me.

I haven’t yet found a solution.
Will someone please help me with this?
Thank you for your time.
-SJL

2

The URLs you mention all seem to be mentioning that, an application seems to be causing this issue – not KDE Plasma as such …

Have you inspected the content of ‘~/.local/share/sddm/xorg-session.log’?

  • Is there anything unexpected in the system XOrg session log (/var/log/Xorg.0.log)?
3

xorg-session.log yields nothing too interesting other than error with HPLIP printing system.

as for Xorg.0.log


cat Xorg.0.log |grep DFP-6
    12.144] (--) NVIDIA(0):     DFP-6 (boot)
    12.147] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): connected
    12.147] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): Internal DisplayPort
    12.147] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
    12.153] (II) NVIDIA(0):     "DFP-6:nvidia-auto-select"
    12.175] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "DFP-6:nvidia-auto-select"
    12.705] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): connected
    12.705] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): Internal DisplayPort
    12.705] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
    15.226] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): connected
    15.226] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): Internal DisplayPort
    15.226] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
    15.907] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): connected
    15.907] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): Internal DisplayPort
    15.907] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
 64354.434] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): DFP-6: disconnected
 64354.434] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): DFP-6: Internal DisplayPort
 64354.434] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): DFP-6: 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
 64355.180] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): connected
 64355.180] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): Internal DisplayPort
 64355.180] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
 80457.007] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): DFP-6: disconnected
 80457.010] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): DFP-6: Internal DisplayPort
 80457.010] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): DFP-6: 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
 80457.748] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): connected
 80457.748] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): Internal DisplayPort
 80457.748] (--) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Philips PHL 272B8Q (DFP-6): 1440.0 MHz maximum pixel clock

DFP-6 seems to disconnect itself which probably leads to desktop resolution changing and therefore desktop icons moving around.

4

If you don’t have a HP Printer or, a Printer which uses the HP Printer Interface protocol, remove the “hplip” package and then lock it – to prevent it being re-installed by a couple of dependencies …

Apart from that, it still seems to be an issue caused by a non-KDE application which bypasses the Qt graphics interface …

5

Package Nvidia Gfx04 is too old.
Update to G05 (nvidia-gfxG05) instead: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers

6

I cannot as cuda-10-1 requires this driver. Not to mention that i have used gfx05 and problem persisted

7

Hi
That’s not correct (See your previous CUDA vs gfxG05 thread), just use the cuda run file (rather than an rpm) and use the --override and skip the driver install…

I use both the nvidia driver and cuda (and cudann) run files (albeit on Tumbleweed) all works without fuss installing the hard way…

8

You are right, however it doesn’t quite fix the issue because I was using gfx05 before, and I had this problem before. Do you know what may be causing the monitor to disconnect/connect by itself?

9

During a face-to-face chat this morning, I learnt that, an Apple Mac setup with multiple side-by-side Desktops and Mouse-Pad swipe or flick between the Desktops, also suffers the “Desktop Icons re-arrange themselves” issue …

On this Desktop machine, I’ve changed my Plasma Desktops from the “rotating cube” effect to the “side-by-side” layout and “glide” transition between the Plasma Desktops – the issue isn’t present. I’ll setup a Laptop to the same Plasma Desktops layout and see what the Mouse-Pad gestures do …

10

Unfortunately, I already have my desktop set up to be sliding and slide-by-side instead of a cube for KDE.

Something that I am now trying is that I decided to use the HDMI instead of Display Port for this monitor. I’ve also tried DVI and for some reason it gave me an awful and ugly blurry resolution!

I’ll report back in ~72 hours in case this happens again.
Thank you.
-SJL

11

Okay,
After 100+ hours, I am reporting that switching the monitor cable to HDMI seems to have solved the problem.

This means, I am going to guess there is a bug in NVIDIA/KDE power saving option where it times out and cuts off the connection to Display Port.

12

Maybe the following could provide a clue.

Years ago (two decades and plus) I worked on PowerPC Macs running under MacOS 7, MacOS 8, and MacOS 9.

If I changed to a lower screen resolution in the respective control panel, or if the screen resolution had been reduced for other reasons (e.g. booting from an external hard disk on another Mac), then almost all of the icons on the desktop were moved to another location in a way that they all remained visible.

Returning to the old screen resolution did not move them back, of course.
So, cleaning up this mess afterwards always was nasty.

Funny enough, that under linux/KDE/openSUSE one can’t even choose the screen resolution anymore.

But based on that past experience I would look if something (a driver, an app, whatever) - even temporarily - could have changed the screen resolution.