Plasma menu refreshing over and over again (SOLVED?)

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arielenter

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So I was having the same issue I reported on triskel 9 Etiona some time ago:

https://trisquel.info/en/forum/trisquel-9s-application-launcher-keeps-saying-applications-updated-over-and-over

But this time is diferente. Back then it was imposible to know what was happening at all, because it came so random even when testing triskel from the installer in the live USB. I wasn't doing anything particularly to provoque it. So I just basically give up on KDE plasma last release. Actually after all I have gone through in the last few days I do think it's a little moody xD

This problem doesn't affect the menu only, but it is so bad that the desktop start becoming very slow as if it where creating a performance issue.

The symptom is that it is imposible to type or move through the menu because is as if the menu were restarted again. Adding widgets to panels also does the same thing, and some sub menus act weird as well.

Anyway, this time triskel 10 was working just peachy for moths, so I felt comfortable to keep using it. Actually I did found my self causing this issue some how at first install, but I was so convince on trying KDE for sure this time, that I reinstalled triskel from scratch (yes I am that dump) and the problem didn't show again for months.

Now before I continue I do want to ensure you guys that I didn't do the same thing over and over when this issue arouse in the past. I did something this time that I'm not so proud of but I don't do this quotidian.

So anyway after months the issue arouse. And I'm like O_O. So first thing I try is to create a new user and log in to it to make sure is not only my user, and no, that new user has also the same problem. So what now? Before I OSD again and reinstall everything again I thought: why not just uninstall purge plasma and install by using the following commands:

sudo apt purge plasma-*
sudo apt autoremove --purge

Then I install triskel back using a session in MATE with:

sudo apt install triskel
sudo apt install triskel-recommended

After that I log in to the new user and it worked!!! But one thing though, my original old user was still having this issue :/ , at least I knew now that it did had something to do with my user, which meant I only had to look for what in my user folder, which was proveed when I backup and deleted .local

I finally pointed out that deleting a .desktop file from the ~/.local/share/applicacion made the problem go a way.

Now this is what I'm not so proud about. That .desktop file was there because I installed a program from the internet using a bash file, and I'll admit I did not check exactly what it was doing "CHANG CHANG CHAAAAAANG!!!!". Now I know my reputation after saying what I said won't be very good, but I can ensure you I did not do this every time this problem arouse, it just happens that this time I did.

Now, why did this problem affected the new user at first and later it didn't? My guess is that the search function in the menu glitches when ever this specific file was being indexed. And I notice that when creating a new user in plasma, they can see each other files. There is of course an option that says whether or not you want to encrypt user files but, I thought that at least they will have not the right permitios to do so. It might also have not helped that I was always given admin priv to every new user :/ . Unless I'm wrong, in MATE users can not see each other files when a new user is created even if encryption is not selected and su has to be used if wanted to do so. Oh well.

Hope this helps some one out there. By the way the .desktop file was pointing to a file in ~/.local/share/bin I deleted that file too but it was not necessary to get the problem fix. Actually the problem is solved instantly, no need to close the session or reboot. Any way, thank you for your read.

arielenter

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Oh and BTW if some one know how can I debug something like this next time it happens please let me know.

I tried what is suggested here https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Debugging by using gdb on org.kde.plasma.appmenu and org.kde.plasma.simplemenu but even though the interaction with the resulting menu was also glitching, the output was not showing anything interesting to solve the problem.

arielenter

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One more thing I want to mention. The error did not arrice right after I installed that application I mention with a bash script that was provided, otherwise I would have noticed that it was it who was causing it for some reason. It actually happen after more than two months.

My only guess, is that it took all that time for the search indexer to find those files. I don't really know. Next time something like this happens again, I'll try to find if an indexing is really happening, and see if I can stop it to see if something changes.