[SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

RobF · 2009-11-03 19:16:43

I'm using KDE 4.3.1. I lost the customized configuration of my Desktop, i.e. wallpaper image, launchers for widgets and applications that were present in the bottom panel and in the system tray, clock configuration, Desktop icons, etc. All of this reverted to the default configuration. This is the second or third time this has happened in the last few months, and it happens out of the blue, i.e. from one startup to the next. Obviously, KDE upon starting up can't find the config file(s) in which my custom settings are stored and which it was able to access before without any problem.

My questions:

1. What could have brought this on, i.e. why does KDE suddenly fail to load my custom Desktop config? Could there be a problem in accessing the appropriate HDD sector, i.e. possibly imminent HDD failure?

2. What is/are the file(s) in which my custom Desktop settings are stored? Is there an automatic backup of these file(s) from which I could easily restore my previous custom settings? Or could I simply reload the appropriate file(s) from my rsync backup of my home dir that I did just a week ago?

Last edited by RobF (2009-11-04 11:22:40)

mutlu_inek · 2009-11-03 19:56:46

Have a look at or restore ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma*

RobF · 2009-11-04 11:21:49

mutlu_inek wrote:

Have a look at or restore ~/.kde4/share/config/plasma*

Thanks for the tip. I was able to restore my custom Desktop configuration by overwriting the three plasma* files in ~/.kde4/share/config/ with the matching files from my recent rsync backup.

How my Desktop customization can get wiped out repeatedly, out of the blue, I still don't know. A bug in KDE 4.3?

mutlu_inek · 2009-11-04 19:21:07

RobF wrote:

A bug in KDE 4.3?

Possibly, but I never experienced it.

FrozenFox · 2009-11-04 20:33:34

As far as imminent hd failure goes, you should take a look at smartctl's output for your disk. However, take it with a grain of salt because it's not a definite indicator of disk health or lack thereof, but should be considered as a general report of such as determined by the disk itself. Also, some filesystems have problems with incorrect shutdowns eating files. During any of these times kde screwed up, did you shut down by force in any way (or did the power go out?) or did the shut-down process proceed normally? What filesystem do you use for /home ?

Last edited by FrozenFox (2009-11-04 20:35:20)

RobF · 2009-11-04 22:29:30

FrozenFox wrote:

As far as imminent hd failure goes, you should take a look at smartctl's output for your disk. However, take it with a grain of salt because it's not a definite indicator of disk health or lack thereof, but should be considered as a general report of such as determined by the disk itself. Also, some filesystems have problems with incorrect shutdowns eating files. During any of these times kde screwed up, did you shut down by force in any way (or did the power go out?) or did the shut-down process proceed normally? What filesystem do you use for /home ?

Thanks for your comment. I run smartctl occasionally, mostly to check the temperature of the HDD in my laptop. Ran it again just now but the drive passed. The only thing that looks rather high is the load cycle count (53323) but I remember reading some time ago when I was alarmed by this that smartctl sometimes puts out anomalously high values for this parameter that don't mean anything.

So, I don't really think my internal HDD is sick. No other file reading failures have occurrred recently. The 2 or 3 times this particular problem had occurred recently, I'd restarted or shutdown the system in the standard way and restart/shutdown proceeded normally. The filesystem for /home is reiserfs3 which is a journaling filesystem.

I'm not much concerned about this anymore - now that I know how to restore my custom Desktop config files, it's no big deal if this happens again. If it's some flakyness in KDE 4.3, it might be gone in future releases.

Gen2ly · 2009-11-05 02:09:49

If you want to backup/restore your plasma configs (they do just seem to go bad at times) i just wrote about creating a script to save and restore them here.

RobF · 2009-11-05 14:51:43

Gen2ly wrote:

If you want to backup/restore your plasma configs (they do just seem to go bad at times) i just wrote about creating a script to save and restore them here.

Great! Thanks for the script. Will try it.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-11-03 19:16:43

[SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#2 2009-11-03 19:56:46

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#3 2009-11-04 11:21:49

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#4 2009-11-04 19:21:07

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#5 2009-11-04 20:33:34

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#6 2009-11-04 22:29:30

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#7 2009-11-05 02:09:49

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

#8 2009-11-05 14:51:43

Re: [SOLVED] Lost customized KDE Desktop config -> reverted to default

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