I rebooted to find all my kde taskbar icons gone. I tried erasing the .kde4 folder, no effect. Need help.
I can’t find the basic time icons either. How do I restore defaults?
Thanks.
Obviously. Plasma5 (and all of KDE Frameworks5 actually) does not use ~/.kde4/ at all, the config is located in the standard ~/.config/ now.
I can’t find the basic time icons either. How do I restore defaults?
What are “basic time icons”?
Does the desktop itself work or do you just have a blank screen?
(the latter would likely mean that plasmashell crashed or wasn’t started)
Maybe post a screenshot for clarification.
You can of course reset to the defaults by deleting/renaming the folder ~/.config/.
Or as a first try the file ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc which contains just Plasma’s desktop setup.
I think that it is more likely that widgets were unlocked and the default panel accidentally removed. This can be done with an inadvertent swipe. I used to have regular problems with users doing this and at one time resorted to a script to lock widgets when they logged out.
Right-click on some unoccupied desktop, ensure widgets are unlocked, choose Add Panel > Default Panel.
Position, size and configure as desired.
Right-click on some unoccupied desktop, ensure widgets are locked,
Well, that shouldn’t be that easy to do accidentally anymore nowadays, and you’d also get a popup with the option to undo the change… 
Anyway, if that’s the problem, removing the mentioned config file should fix it too.
Default panel: time with calendar, notifications, devices, etc
My panel is still gone after deleting ‘.config’. I tried using the right-click bottom of screen to:
‘add panel’–>‘default opensuse panel’ nothing happens. ‘Add empty panel’ adds it to the top of the screen. I need bottom of screen. I can’t find move panel.
I couldn’t get the linux system to start and update install didn’t work. So, I did an install with import user.
I managed to get some icons back, but there is no digital time widget.
panel options–>add wigits–> no function to add a digit time clock.
You might also check to see if you have accidentally switched Activities in the Activity Manager.
You mean the task bar or system tray?
Activity Manager?
tray: software updates, devices connected, sound, date (displayed)
Do you have “plasma5-workspace-libs” installed? The “digitalclock” widget seems to be in there.
What Plasma/KDE Frameworks versions are you using?
This sounds a bit like like https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389297 and some of the problems mentioned in https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/529253-Configure-Desktop-seems-not-to-work-now .
Look for kpluginindex.json files in all subfolders of /usr/share/plasma/ and ~/.local/share/plasma/ and delete them.
If one exists and cannot be read for some reason, the corresponding “plugins” are not available even if installed.
(see https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/529253-Configure-Desktop-seems-not-to-work-now?p=2856618#post2856618 in particular)
This can especially be a problem with the latest KDE Frameworks (from KDE:Frameworks5), as the file format has been changed recently (the files are compressed now), and newer versions cannot read older files (and vice-versa)
‘Add empty panel’ adds it to the top of the screen. I need bottom of screen. I can’t find move panel.
You can move the panel by clicking on the toolbox icon on the right side and then clicking/dragging the “Edge” button.
Switching Activities doesn’t influence the panel, btw.