Weird touch screen keyboard on login screen, KDE inacessable.

After last update I have ended up with a weird error on the login screen complaining about the theme. Also it keeps giving me a touchscreen keyboard when my PC doesn’t actually have a touchscreen.

When I try to login to KDE Plasma now, it just returns me to the weird touch screen keyboard, and when I minimise that it is back to the login screen with the error message about the theme. The login screen no longer looks as nice as it did either.

I can login using IceWM, but would prefer to get KDE back.

From IceWm I opened a terminal and ran a zypper dup, and this installed a bunch more upgrades, however I had to press ‘ignore’ on a lot of them for some reason. I rebooted but the problem persists.

Now if I do the sudo zypper dup it suggests uninstalling a bunch of stuff, which I decided not to do. Maybe I need to? Not sure how to proceed without potentially breaking it completely.

Warning: You are about to do a distribution upgrade with all enabled repositories. Make sure these repositories are compatible before you continue. See 'man zypper' for more information about this command.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Computing distribution upgrade...

The following 33 packages are going to be REMOVED:
  akonadi-calendar-tools akonadi-import-wizard akonadi-search baloo5-file baloo5-imports baloo5-kioslaves baloo5-tools baloo5-widgets kaccounts-integration kaccounts-providers kcalutils kdeclarative-components kdelibs4support kdepim-runtime kio_audiocd kleopatra kmail-account-wizard kmailtransport kwin5 libKF5Baloo5 libKF5Holidays5 libKF5KCMUtils5 libKF5QuickAddons5 libKF5Runner5 libKPimGAPICalendar5 libKPimGAPIContacts5 libKPimGAPITasks5 libKPimImportWizard5 plasma5-session plasma5-session-wayland plasma5-workspace plasma-framework purpose

33 packages to remove.
After the operation, 59.0 MiB will be freed.
Continue? [y/n/...? shows all options] (y): 

I would like to:

  • Get rid of the annoying ‘touch screen keyboard’, as I don’t have a touch screen.
  • Get KDE Plasma running again
  • Get rid of the theme error on the login screen

Anyone know how to fix this issue?

The virtual keybouard (which also works with a mouse or other pointer) is toggled on and off with a button/icon normally in the bottom left. It is to the left of the menu to choose the login session (IceWM, Plasma, etc.).

It is normal for a bunch of obsoleted stuff to be removed with a “zypper dup”. They are replaced with updated versions. Just make sure that you have not enabled any repositories other than the OpenSUSE and Packman Tumbleweed repositories unless you are really confident that you can fix things that will break.

You may have selected a login theme or Desktop Manager that is not longer supported. You do not say which DM you are using – SDDM, KDM, LightDM or whatever and what theme.

Okay, I uninstalled those things, and now the login screen no longer even has an option to login to KDE. It is IceVM only now.

I may well have chosen a custom login theme, but can’t find out how to reset it to default in IceVM. I think it had ‘Breeze’ in the name.

Also, the error message had some file path that included SDDM, so I assume that is the answer to your query.

I can only find a button to close the virtual keyboard temporarilly. It still gets in the way every time I boot up. Previously I had set this machine to auto login to one of the users, since it i a desktop and you have to type a password to unencrypt the harddrive twice on bootup anyway. That has also stopped working.

I had the same problem with the keyboard - uninstall libqt5-qtvirtualkeyboard then go to yast right-click and taboo this package. Otherwise it will be reinstalled with the next update.
Cheers
Uli

Virtual keyboard:
Have you modified e.g. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf ?

Bad/Missing Plasma5
What repositories are you using with “zypper dup”?
Do you have the required KDE patterns installed?
Here’s what I have:

rayh@y3:~/bin> zypper lr -E -d
Repository priorities are without effect. All enabled repositories share the same priority.

#  | Alias              | Name               | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Priority | Type   | URI                                                                 | Service
---+--------------------+--------------------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
 2 | Packman-Tumbleweed | Packman-Tumbleweed | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ |        
 4 | Tumbleweed--gwdg   | Tumbleweed--gwdg   | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | yast2  | http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/tumbleweed/repo/oss/               |        
rayh@y3:~/bin> 
rayh@y3:~/bin> rpm -qa patterns-kde-* |sort
patterns-kde-kde-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_imaging-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_internet-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_multimedia-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_office-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_plasma-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_utilities-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_utilities_opt-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_yast-20170319-13.1.noarch
rayh@y3:~/bin> 

The display manager settings are in “/etc/sysconfig/displaymanager”.

rayh@y3:~/bin> grep "DISPLAYMANAGER="  /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager
DISPLAYMANAGER="sddm"

And the Login Screen configured in:
[KDE] System Settings > Workspace > Startup and Shutdown > Login Screen

That is just hiding the problem rather than solving a misconfigured system.

This is now deprecated. The display manager is now taken from
/usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/
and is set using

 # update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager

There is a discussion in https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/530351-After-latest-update-no-graphical-Interface?p=2860204

My repositories look a little different.

Output from zypper lr -E -d:

Repository priorities are without effect. All enabled repositories share the same priority.

# | Alias               | Name                        | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Priority | Type   | URI                                                   | Service
--+---------------------+-----------------------------+---------+-----------+---------+----------+--------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------
1 | openSUSE-20180130-0 | openSUSE-20180130-0         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/     |        
2 | packman             | packman                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://packman.inode.at/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/     |        
4 | repo-non-oss        | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Non-Oss | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/non-oss/ |        
6 | repo-update         | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Update  | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/tumbleweed/       |        

I think I needed the non-oss repo for video editting codecs for converting files to a format ready for use in OpenShot, if I remember correctly. Packman was to get VLC working, or maybe it was also extra codecs. Not sure of the other two, or why they all look different from yours.

Default display option is SDDM. Other options are Console and XDM.

I also marked libqt5-qtvirtualkeyboard as taboo. First login was always fine, but logout/login would plaster an offensively huge keyboard on my 30" 2560x1600 screen, nearly covering everything on-screen, comical. My unedited 00-keyboard.conf has:

# Written by systemd-localed(8), read by systemd-localed and Xorg. It's
# probably wise not to edit this file manually. Use localectl(1) to
# instruct systemd-localed to update it.
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "system-keyboard"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection


Well - how about explaining then how to configure the system that this keyboard does not show? What about a sample 00-keyboard.conf?

The results of my kde patterns. I think there were some errors preventing some of these upgrading to newer versions…


# rpm -qa patterns-kde-* |sort
patterns-kde-kde-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_games-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_imaging-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_internet-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_multimedia-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_office-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_plasma-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_utilities-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_utilities_opt-20170319-13.1.noarch
patterns-kde-kde_yast-20170319-13.1.noarch

I’m completely lost here.

I have the exact same patterns listed as you. If you just grep for “patterns” they are all 2017 except for the one yast2 pattern. So I’m thinking that’s not the problem. I think a pattern is just a list of other packages to install, so a pattern probably may not need to change too often.

Did you upgrade from 13.1? those RPM’s are patterns ie just lists of stuff to install from 13.1 ie they don’t belong in TW

Do you have things set to keep installed RPM’s??

Those pattern RPMs are in the current TW repositories and have been there at least a month.

As per xorbe, the patterns seem fine, as do your repositories. KDE Plasma ought to work fine providing you can login.

I have managed to replicate all of the symptoms you described on my otherwise running well TW-KDE laptop.
I have created an SDDM blue breeze login screen that persistently opens with the virtual keyboard active, and also an apparently blank background with only the virtual keyboard. This was the result of (unsuccessfully) trying to change the SDDM theme in System Settings (Elarun). I tried switching to additional graphical user logins (the ctrl-alt-f[789] option). On logout-restart I was stuck with the virtual keyboard scenario.

In this state it was possible to type in the last users password and login to the default (last used) desktop, or use <ctrl-alt-f1> to login to the Linux console.
I used the aforementioned “update-alternatives --config default-displaymanager” command to switch to LightDM.
After using Light DM to login to Plasma5, I used System Settings to change the SDDM theme to the blue Breee (the green OpenSUSE theme does not work anymore). Then “update-alternatives” can be used to switch back to SDDM for the next login.

That is where I am at now. I do not know what has happened to the themes and I am really busy for the next few days.

In /etc/sddm.conf, add this to the [General] section:
InputMethod=

This worked for me.

Delete the Package libqt5-qtvirtualkeyboard.

I get multiple errors attempting to reinstall KDE, this is just one example.

Subprocess failed. Error: RPM failed: error: db4 error(-30986) from dbcursor->c_get: DB_PAGE_NOTFOUND: Requested page not found

 error: error(-30986) getting "System/GUI/KDE" records from Group index: DB_PAGE_NOTFOUND: Requested page not found
 error: db4 error(-30986) from dbcursor->c_get: DB_PAGE_NOTFOUND: Requested page not found
 error: error(-30986) getting "System/GUI/KDE" records from Group index: DB_PAGE_NOTFOUND: Requested page not found
 error: kscreen5-5.12.4-1.1.x86_64: install failed

 error: kscreen5-5.12.3-1.1.x86_64: erase skipped


I selected ‘ignore’, but then it gave me warnings that ignoring this can cause the system to brake, so maybe that is what happened? I remember having to ignore something that failed to install previously, just before this problem started,

Thanks. That is the annoying virtual keyboard gone. One problem down.

I seem to have the option to login to KDE again, but if I use it, it gives me the animated lightbulb graphic for a few seconds before returning to the login page. I wish I could copy/paste the error from the login page, or screenshot it, but alas. I’ll try and look at it and remember what it says…

Okay, I think I have the error on the login screen. It says:


The current theme cannot be loaded due to the errors below, please select another theme.

file:///usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze-openSUSE/Main.qml:25:1: plugin cannot be loaded for module
'org.kde.plasma.core': Cannot load library /usr/lib64/qt5/qml/org/kde/plasma/core/
libcorebindingsplugin.so: (/usr/lib64/libKFSXmlGui.so.5: file too short)

I have no idea how to change the theme to one that works. Much of the gui software won’t run in IceWM. Yast will. Firefox will. Dolphin won’t. KDE system settings won’t. Terminal half works (can’t copy and paste from it).

So what are my options?