Unexpected Behavior after login

LEAP 42.1 upgraded from 13.2; Worked fine for about a week, then after password is accepted, a small command line interface with lavender background appears at top left. This command line responds to “startkde” correctly, and an apparently normal KDE session results, except only that the command line interface remains. Closing it puts me back to the login screen. Exiting KDE returns to the same command line, which again responds to “sudo shutdown _P now” correctly. Other observation: logging in as root seems to work correctly (KDE starts automatically). Tried that once for a few seconds. Questions: Why does KDE fail to start automatically upon login, and how can I fix it, and What did I do wrong to cause the problem?

Thanks.

-AJR

Perhaps corruption in KDE config files.

Be sure all repositories are point to the appropriate 42.1 repos

Thanks-

All repository links seem correct. Any idea which config files might be corrupt?

-AJR

It sounds like you may have inadvertently selected to start a terminal session in the desktop manager. At the login screen you should find an, often inconspicuous, drop-down session menu. Select “Plasma 5” or somesuch.

Eng-int-

You nailed it. Nothing was selected in the login screen menu. By simply selecting ‘Default’ the issue vanished.

Thank you very much.

-AJR