Have here a headless i7 box (TigerVNC) with Leap 15.2 KDE, nothing special. Since months now (and sometimes before, iirc) the box comes back from rebooting after updates without the desktop panel. I usually add the panel again and individualize it again (turn off updates and so on), which takes me some minutes and is quite frustrating to do every week to month…
I suspect what may be happening is the panel is being dropped below screen line 1135 on your 1600x1200 screen.
Inxi is showing a peculiar screen resolution (1920x1135) that’s inconsistent with what Xorg.0.log reports (1600x1200). I would try confirming that screen resolution with xdpyinfo | egrep ‘dimen|ution’. ‘kcmshell5 xserver &’ run from Konsole or Xterm will include the same information. I expect running xrandr in Konsole will show the same modes as Xorg.0.log. The line where ***** appears indicates the current mode. The line where + appears indicates the display’s reported native/preferred mode. Check to see.
It looks like your display is an old 4:3 model (1600x1200 native). If it’s really being run at 1920x1135, I’d try to find out why, unless you already know, and turn that off, letting it run in native 1600x1200 mode. Inxi could simply be lying, as the old version provided by openSUSE repos has a lot of -G bugs that have since been fixed.[1] The current version, which is simply an elaborate data collection shell script, can be had and installed from its author’s site. Another release was made less than a week ago. The upstream version provides a -U switch that causes it to update itself. openSUSE’s inxi packager disables that switch.
If you’re not sure the resolution thing is anything you’ve done purposely, try this:
goto “system settings” background services and deselect “KScreen2” and apply
log out of your Plasma session
Ctrl-Alt-F3 and log in
rm -R .cache/*
rm .config/plasma*appletsrc
if /etc/X11/xorg.conf exists, rename it, e.g.
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf01
if in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ you find any of ]50-device.conf]50-monitor.conf*]50-screen.conf
exist and have any lines that are not simply comments, rename those file(s). If any other files in that directory exist that affect your display, rename them too. Any for mouse, keyboard, touchpad or other input devices leave alone. 1. chvt 7; exit
login normally
At this point you’ll need to recustomize your panel, but hopefully future updates won’t be hiding or removing your panel any more.
If you like, jump from step 4 to step 8. If it hasn’t helped, start over and jump from 5 to 8, and if no help, from 6 to 8…
If you open MC after completing step 3, as I would, you may find the subsequent steps simplified.
There is an old 1600x1200 monitor attached to the machine, but as I said, it is used headless via TigerVNC. If the panel is “slipping below the lower edge of the monitor” I use for VNC (notebook with 1920x1200) it would re-appear if I choose a VNC-window size smaller than the total screen. But after these reboots the panel is really gone.
I have here:
xdpyinfo | egrep 'dimen|ution'. 'kcmshell5 xserver &'
grep: kcmshell5 xserver &: No such file or directory
and
xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 32 x 32, current 1920 x 1135, maximum 32768 x 32768
VNC-0 connected primary 1920x1135+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1920x1135 60.00*+
1920x1200 60.00
1920x1080 60.00
1600x1200 60.00
1680x1050 60.00
1400x1050 60.00
1360x768 60.00
1280x1024 60.00
1280x960 60.00
1280x800 60.00
1280x720 60.00
1024x768 60.00
800x600 60.00
640x480 60.00
(as the 1920x1200 notebook screen used for VNC has a panel at the bottom, so not the full 1200 can be used for height)
and furtermore:
cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
cat: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: No such file or directory
cat 50-monitor.conf
# Having multiple "Monitor" sections is known to be problematic. Make
# sure you don't have in use another one laying around e.g. in another
# xorg.conf.d file or even a generic xorg.conf file. More details can
# be found in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32430.
#
#Section "Monitor"
# Identifier "Default Monitor"
#
# ## If your monitor doesn't support DDC you may override the
# ## defaults here
# #HorizSync 28-85
# #VertRefresh 50-100
#
# ## Add your mode lines here, use e.g the cvt tool
#
#EndSection
cat 50-screen.conf
# Having multiple "Screen" sections is known to be problematic. Make
# sure you don't have in use another one laying around e.g. in another
# xorg.conf.d file or even a generic xorg.conf file. More details can
# be found in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32430.
#
#Section "Screen"
# Identifier "Default Screen"
#
# Device "Default Device"
#
# ## Doesn't help for radeon/radeonhd drivers; use magic in
# ## 50-device.conf instead
# Monitor "Default Monitor"
#
#EndSection
cat 50-device.conf
# Having multiple "Device" sections is known to be problematic. Make
# sure you don't have in use another one laying around e.g. in another
# xorg.conf.d file or even a generic xorg.conf file. More details can
# be found in https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32430.
#
#Section "Device"
# Identifier "Default Device"
#
# #Driver "radeon"
#
# ## Required magic for radeon/radeonhd drivers; output name
# ## (here: "DVI-0") can be figured out via 'xrandr -q'
# #Option "monitor-DVI-0" "Default Monitor"
#
#EndSection
sudo inxi -U
[sudo] password for root:
Starting inxi self updater.
Using tiny as downloader.
Currently running inxi version number: 3.1.00
Current version patch number: 00
Current version release date: 2020-04-22
Updating inxi in /usr/bin using main branch as download source...
Successfully updated to main branch version: 3.3.03
New main branch version patch number: 00
New main branch version release date: 2021-03-17
To run the new version, just start inxi again.
----------------------------------------
Starting download of man page file now.
Downloading Man page file...
Download successful. Compressing file...
Download and install of man page successful.
Check to make sure it works: man inxi
xdpyinfo | egrep 'dimen|ution'
dimensions: 1920x1135 pixels (507x299 millimeters)
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
as well as
kcmshell5 xserver &
[1] 7526
Couldn't load plugin "kcms/kcm_info" : "The shared library was not found." -- falling back to old-style loading from desktop file
…and then a small window pops up named “X-Server”. Anthing needed as screenshot?
I don’t know what to do about that. At this point I think it’s unimportant anyway.
…and then a small window pops up named “X-Server”. Anthing needed as screenshot?
Is it empty? The only interest here is if its content matches xdpyinfo output. It’s just KDE’s way of capturing portions of xdpyinfo’s copious output it thinks you’d like to know about.
Because of the VNC environment I think these things are as expect, OK. So, go ahead and try the list of 9. Plasma seems to have occasional bouts of cache corruption for some users. Others say it never happens. I’ve lost Plasma panels on various installations on both openSUSE and Fedora. Usually cache clearing and or removing the panel’s RC file solves it, but not always. And, I keep KScreen disabled. When I want to deviate from display defaults, I use global settings, so that they apply no matter which DE session type I log into.
Hi
Not sure if this will work (don’t do much remote desktop any more) but use to just use xrandr -s zzzz x yyyy (~/.profile) on login to set the screen dimensions.
Ok, I took the final, remaining step and renamed this “plasma*appletsrc” to .old and rebooted. Had to reconfig the desktop, but now the file is only 5.5 kB, instaed of 378 kB and the Desktop panel survives a reboot
Many thanks for pointing me in the right direction…