KDE 4.1.1 Upadate Checkerboard Problem

jonrwads · August 5, 2008, 5:03pm

After updating to the newest version of KDE 4.1.1, when I try to log into KDE 4.1.1 the computer goes through the splash screen but rather than bringing up the desktop it just brings up a light gray and white checkerboard background, no panels or plasmoids, nothing.

I had this problem on a computer with a NVidia card after reinstalling the driver everything seemed to work. No such luck on my ATI laptop. After the install I deleted the .kde4 folder from my home directory to see if that helped the problem. X loads fine and does not freeze the desktop is responsive but there is nothing there. I would like to include a screenshot but it won’t let me do that. If I hit alt+f2 it brings up the desktop search but it does not do anything, no results are displayed.

I don’t really even know where to begin or what information to give to help diagnose the issue. Any help is appreciated

cookdav · August 5, 2008, 5:31pm

That checkerboard is their default plasma ‘zoom-out’ pattern, etc.

But, just deleting your .kde4 sub-tree SHOULD put you back to the
initial first-time user (default) layout, so I’m totally mystified why that
didn’t work. I’d try it again, tho.

That said, I think I figured out that they may be keeping some piece of initial-context
over under .kde3 subtree (if you have KDE-3 installed, which of course I do).
So, for a test, you could try renaming .kde3 to .kde3-save, delete the .kde4,
and see if that fixes it. Of course, the usual caveat applies…you have to
re-tailor the desktop(s) back to your normal preferences.

Keep us informed how it goes…you got me curious about what’s going on
on your machine.

EDIT: One last thought: They probably also keep a ‘template’ somewhere of
what the inital-setup for a new-user is supposed to look like, so if THAT got
modified, it would explain what’s going on. (Don’t know where that is off
the top of my head.)

jonrwads · August 5, 2008, 5:50pm

Thanks for your quick respone. I have downloaded the one click installer and started from scratch on that. Deleted the .kde4 and renamed the default .kde folder. After all that, no luck. The thing is I like KDE 4 a lot and now not even the default install from the one click packages is working.

cookdav · August 5, 2008, 6:55pm

My gut says that it’s not the one-click installer that’s causing it. More
important is how you REMOVED the previous KDE4 installed software.
**

swamp_yankee · August 26, 2008, 6:26pm

I had a similar problem with Plasma failing after a 1-click installed update from KDE 4.04 to 4.1. PLasma would not load a desktop following the initial reboot after the update. What solved it for me was:

rename the .kde AND .kde4 folders in the /Home
Forced update of ALL KDE4 packages to Factory current versions.

Several packages were running incompatible versions after the automated update. You might try the forced update steps first, to see if you can save yourself the hassle of re-configuring your desktop, email, etc.

On a side note: when plasma failed on my install ALT+F2 would pull up the “command line” to launch applications, but nothing would render on-screen. By checking the running processes, I could confirm that the applications were running, but no GUI was available with which to interact. I had to login to an XFCE session as root to solce the problem.

Benjamin_Xiao · August 26, 2008, 7:03pm

I had this problem as well after I updated when the package maintainers hadn’t completely updated all the packages in the repo.

I hit Alt-F2 and was able to get into Yast and upgrade the other packages the next day.

Check the versions on the plasma packages and see if they match up with the other kde factory packages.

user · September 10, 2008, 1:02pm

swamp_yankee:

I had a similar problem with Plasma failing after a 1-click installed update from KDE 4.04 to 4.1. PLasma would not load a desktop following the initial reboot after the update. What solved it for me was:

rename the .kde AND .kde4 folders in the /Home

Forced update of ALL KDE4 packages to Factory current versions.

Several packages were running incompatible versions after the automated update. You might try the forced update steps first, to see if you can save yourself the hassle of re-configuring your desktop, email, etc.

On a side note: when plasma failed on my install ALT+F2 would pull up the “command line” to launch applications, but nothing would render on-screen. By checking the running processes, I could confirm that the applications were running, but no GUI was available with which to interact. I had to login to an XFCE session as root to solce the problem.

i’ve an identical problem updating to 4.1.1… how can i force update of all kde4 to factory version? can you be more precise? thx a lot

swamp_yankee · September 10, 2008, 5:16pm

I’m betting that there is an easier method, but worked for me:

Login as ROOT to a session using an alternative WM or DE, such as xfce. Use the “session” menu at login.
rename the .kde and .kde4 folders in your user /home folder.
launch YAST and search (filter) for kde4 packages. (I THINK I did this from XFCE).
Search (filter) for kde4 packages.
click the icon next to each kde4 package already installed on your system until you see the update icon (a green arrow pointing up).
update - accept changes
logout
login to kde4
you may be able to salvage some of the settings from your old kde4 profile by copying some of the folders/files from the renamed .kde4 folder to the current .kde4

As I mentioned before, I suspect I could have saved everything by forcing the update of all kde4 packages WITHOUT renaming the .kde4 and .kde folders. I had already been fussing around with repair attempts for an hour or so before I took the steps listed above, and decided to be safe.

More experienced users may be able to offer simplified or more direct solutions, but this is what worked for me.

Good luck!

Benjamin_Xiao · September 11, 2008, 7:11am

When you filter for kde 4 packages, you can go to packages->all packages in this list->upgrade if newer version available. You don’t need to manually check each icon.

Goemon · September 11, 2008, 9:46am

I have the same issues;

I’ve tried the rename/refresh thing with no success.

Any other suggestions (beyond a reinstall - the thing is, the system IS pretty much a clean install)

swamp_yankee · September 11, 2008, 1:34pm

Goemon,

Did you forces an update of all the KDE4 packages or did you just rename the kde and kde4 folders?

Benjamin_Xiao, thanks very much for the tip on updating an entire group of packages. I knew there had to be a simpler method!

Goemon · September 11, 2008, 9:26pm

Both, I thought.

I’ll give it another go…

Goemon · September 12, 2008, 12:44pm

Got i going OK on a retry.

For reference, I did the following:

booted into a console session
ren/del the .kde & .kde4 dirs in home
Forced a refresh for all KDE4 pacakges using the command-line version of YAST (a real life-saver - ALWAYS make sure you install it…)
Started a KDE4 session (making sure NOT to start a KDE3 session)

reggler · September 16, 2008, 7:09am

This does not work for me, get several conflicts cause there’s no libqt4 >= 4.1.1 available… :o oh man, this is crappy

caf4926 · September 16, 2008, 7:20am

Add the qt4 build service repo
Index of /repositories/KDE:/Qt44/openSUSE_11.0
run updates to that
now try kde4.1

user · September 16, 2008, 9:55am

Confirmed, after adding this repo latest update was without conflicts and KDE4.1 is working as it suposed to. Only I lost all panels, looks like I logout from broken session and config with no panels was saved

RedDwarf · September 16, 2008, 10:51am

To avoid problems the repo that should be added is KDE:Qt, not KDE:Qt44

$ osc meta prj KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop
<project name="KDE:KDE4:Factory:Desktop">                
  <title>KDE 4.1.x Packages</title>                      
  <description>This project contains the KDE version currently developed in Factory for the next openSUSE release. It is supposed to be always useable and mostly bugfree. We gladly accept bugreports and enhancement requests, especially if those are not reproduceable with KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Desktop</description>                        
  <person role="maintainer" userid="wstephenson"/>                                                             
  <person role="maintainer" userid="Beineri"/>
  <person role="maintainer" userid="dirkmueller"/>
  <person role="maintainer" userid="coolo"/>
  <person role="maintainer" userid="jpr"/>
  <person role="maintainer" userid="llunak"/>
  <person role="bugowner" userid="dirkmueller"/>
  <debuginfo>
<enable repository='openSUSE_11.0'/>
<enable repository='openSUSE_Factory'/>
  </debuginfo>
  <repository name="openSUSE_10.3">
    <path repository="openSUSE_10.3" project="KDE:Qt"/>
    <arch>i586</arch>
    <arch>x86_64</arch>
  </repository>
  <repository name="openSUSE_11.0">
    <path repository="openSUSE_11.0" project="KDE:Qt"/>
    <arch>i586</arch>
    <arch>x86_64</arch>
    <arch>ppc</arch>
    <arch>ppc64</arch>
  </repository>
  <repository name="openSUSE_Factory">
    <path repository="standard" project="openSUSE:Factory"/>
    <arch>i586</arch>
    <arch>x86_64</arch>
    <arch>ppc</arch>
    <arch>ppc64</arch>
  </repository>
  <repository name="SLE_10">
    <path repository="SLE_10" project="devel:tools:building"/>
    <path repository="standard" project="SUSE:SLE-10:SP2:SDK"/>
    <path repository="SLE_10" project="home:dirkmueller:playground:kde4"/>
    <arch>i586</arch>
    <arch>x86_64</arch>
  </repository>
</project>

thejaswihr · September 16, 2008, 5:42pm

Ok guys, here is the deal.
The recent update of KDE-4.1 from KDE4:Factory did not have all the dependencies for all the packages. What was missing was libqt4-4.1.1 package. Due to this missing dependency, kde4base, kdebase4-runtime and some plasma theme packages were not upgraded. So most of the packages were upgraded but not all. Due to this incosistency we had to face the “checker-board”. (We can coin it as a term )
To resolve this issue, just add the QT4 build service repo to your repository list.


sudo zypper ar "http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt44/openSUSE_11.0/" "KDE:Qt"
sudo zypper refresh

Once thats done, update all the packages


sudo zypper up -t package
sudo zypper dup

Thats it. Restart your system and you should have your favourite KDE4 back with all its charm :).

There is no need to delete or move ~/.kde4 or ~/.kde and loose all your settings. There is also no need to reinstall all the KDE4 packages.

Thejaswi Raya

reggler · September 16, 2008, 7:23pm

Well I got myself logged back into “normal” kde now but my problem is i seem to have lost certain info from the .kde folder but it’s weird in kontact e.g. the folders are all there but no content the mails are gone. any explanation for this? also my kde 4 settings seem to be gone mostly… like wall paper but autostart seems to be correct now… i have no cluewhat’as going on… especially the gone kontact contents are bad can i get it back somehow?
Even the contacts are still there in Kontact but the mails are gone… huh???

sosaudio1 · September 16, 2008, 7:33pm

So maybe one day I will learn to listen to KDE and YaST when the dependency issues jump out at me…LOL I sat there for a good uh…30 seconds and then say…ehh what the heck…that’ll teach me LOL…

OK but on the flip side of this, is there a way we could get the pkg managers to set up a dependency to where when KDE Runtime is not going to be updated it throws a flag?

One more question…

Resolve the repo addy. Is it QT44 or is it KDE:QT?

If there are two we need to know the correct one before delving into a possible dependecncy hell.

I love openSuse!!!

L8R
Rich