KDE Desktop Switching Limited to Two Desktops After Logout/Login

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Dell Latitude E6410
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT218 [NVS 3100M]
(rev a2)
NVidia proprietary drivers
OpenSUSE 12.1 x86_64
KDE 4.7 (I think… whatever is default)
All patches as of yesterday (2012-01-30) morning, MST.

With all of that out there, Disclaimer: I’m not as familiar with KDE as
with Gnome. I have stumbled upon what I am fairly sure is a bug and
while I will report it I am curious if there are ideas for workarounds.

When I setup my system I wanted it to work a little more like my old
Gnome 2.x system did, specifically with four workspaces (desktops)
organized laterally. Why? Because I do. I found how to enable
shortcuts to move between desktops in a relative way (from left to
right) so I have setup Ctrl+Alt+[arrow] (left or right) to move through
them. I renamed the desktops 0, 1, 2, and 3 because I like it that way,
though that’s likely irrelevant. After setting this up I removed the
Desktop pager because I don’t need it and it wastes (imo) panel space.
Voila, everything is bliss.

Logout/Login

In a reproducible way (every time I logout/login) I find that while my
customized shortcuts to move through desktops/workspaces still work (I
can still move to the next/previous desktop) I can only do so between
the current one and one other. I cannot, for example, go from 0 → 1 →
2 → 3 → 0 → 1 as usual… I can only go from 0 → 1 → 0 → 1; it is
wrapping around too soon. Wrapping around is enabled so that’s okay,
but it seems to ignore my other desktops. If I use the default
shortcuts to go directly to a specific desktop (Ctrl+F3 for example)
then I can swap between that one and one other beside it… but only to
one other (and then back and forth, back and forth). So to summarize I
can get to any desktop using Ctrl+F[1-4], and I can even send windows to
any desktop (To Desktop → [choose desktop, as they are all listed
correctly) but I cannot use the Ctrl+Alt keys to switch among all of them.

Clear as mud? Here’s where the bug part comes in. If I go to the
Virtual Desktop pager settings and increase the ‘Number of rows’ to 2,
then put it back down to 1 (I have it set to 1 normally) the entire
problem goes away and my Ctrl+Alt+[arrow] functionality is perfectly
restored until the next time I logout/login. Basically I am doing
nothing other than refreshing the system since I’m changing from 1, to
2, then back to 1, but it seems to be enough. I have not (yet) tried
making other changes to see if it is nothing more than a refresh or if
it has to do with this specific setting. To test this setting, though,
I have tried moving “down” to other desktops but they are not accessible
as far as I can tell. My testing may be off on this one, so I’m open
for any input.

Happy Computing.
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On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:25:51 +0530, ab <ab@novell.com> wrote:

> In a reproducible way (every time I logout/login) I find that while my
> customized shortcuts to move through desktops/workspaces still work (I
> can still move to the next/previous desktop) I can only do so between
> the current one and one other. I cannot, for example, go from 0 → 1 →
> 2 → 3 → 0 → 1 as usual… I can only go from 0 → 1 → 0 → 1; it is
> wrapping around too soon. Wrapping around is enabled so that’s okay,
> but it seems to ignore my other desktops. If I use the default
> shortcuts to go directly to a specific desktop (Ctrl+F3 for example)
> then I can swap between that one and one other beside it… but only to
> one other (and then back and forth, back and forth). So to summarize I
> can get to any desktop using Ctrl+F[1-4], and I can even send windows to
> any desktop (To Desktop → [choose desktop, as they are all listed
> correctly) but I cannot use the Ctrl+Alt keys to switch among all of
> them.
>Clear as mud? Here’s where the bug part comes in. If I go to the
> Virtual Desktop pager settings and increase the ‘Number of rows’ to 2,
> then put it back down to 1 (I have it set to 1 normally) the entire
> problem goes away and my Ctrl+Alt+[arrow] functionality is perfectly
> restored until the next time I logout/login. Basically I am doing
> nothing other than refreshing the system since I’m changing from 1, to
> 2, then back to 1, but it seems to be enough. I have not (yet) tried
> making other changes to see if it is nothing more than a refresh or if
> it has to do with this specific setting. To test this setting, though,
> I have tried moving “down” to other desktops but they are not accessible
> as far as I can tell. My testing may be off on this one, so I’m open
> for any input.

i think you’re correct that there is a bug somewhere, but i’m not sure
what the intended behavior really is.

it appears that the spacial arrangement of desktops is always taken from
the pager in the original panel at the bottom of the screen – and if
there isn’t any pager in that panel, or no panel at all, then it’s taken
from the pager that would be there by default.

i’m using 9 desktops arranged in 3 rows / 3 columns with a pager in a
vertical panel at the right side of my screen, and unless i put an
identical, tiny pager into the default panel at the bottom of the screen,
movement through the available desktops jumps erratically after
login/logout.

i must admit that i’m too lazy to take this up as a bug report, since i’m
pretty sure a huge discussion would ensure, with people / developers
claiming that it should behave in this, that, or some other way, everybody
getting emotional, etc.

i just live with a tiny additional pager in the bottom panel which is
pretty useless because of it’s size, but doesn’t really bother me, for the
same reason.

you write that you can access only 2 of your 4 desktops; are you sure
you’re using the shortcuts for “next desktop,” not “desktop to the right?”
because if you have more than one row, “desktop to the right” will keep
you rotating in one and the same row, while “next desktop” will actually
go through all the available desktops, even if erratically if you don’t
have the same layout in the bottom panel pager.


phani.

Try this:

Logout from your desktop.

Use CTRL-ALT-F1 to get a virtual console, and login there.

While logged into the virtual console:


cd /var/tmp
rm -rf kdecache-$USER

Then logout from the virtual console, and log back into the desktop.

I don’t know if that will help. It forces the cache to be rebuilt. From your description, it sounds as if there might be stale information in the cache causing problem.

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Adding the pager to my desktop works around the problem. The ideas
about defaults make sense. I’ll try to do some additional testing and
will see what comes of a bug; I’ll post back if/when I create it.

Thanks, both of you, for your time.
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