I've just updated both my desktop machines which are running slacware64-current and AlienBob's Plasma 5.

There were a number of updates to both this morning, and since my update, one (and only one!) machine is now displaying Dolphin as shown in the attached image! This is currently making Dolphin almost useless as the actual file display area is very small, compared to the window area.

It looks like a configuration problem, but I can't find any "tweak" that would create this effect! The AMD machine with an Ati graphics card does not have the problem. The Intel machine with Intel graphics does!

Has anyone seen anything like this, or know where the hidden configuration tweak is?

TIA,

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Pete

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That's odd, i would try renaming/moving ~/.kde/ and seeing if the problem persists with clean kde settings.

You could also try deleting ~/.config/dolphinrc

Does the problem go away if you move these files?

I tried renaming dolphinrc, forcing it to create a new one - didn't help - but I haven't tried doing the same with .kde.

Will give it a go in the morning!

Cheers,

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Pete

No, renaming .kde didn't work either! I'm baffled! Everything else seems to be working just fine! And only one of my two machines is affected.

Its got to be a configuration funny somewhere....

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Pete

You could test if it is really caused by a configuration file. Try creating a new user account, log into that and start kde. If the problem doesn't happen, then it has to be a local config file in the home folder. Would just be a case of trying to figure out which file.

Well, I've fixed it - in a slightly unsatisfactory way (the sledgehammer method!). I completely removed kde, including the .kde folder and dolphinrc. I then rebooted, and reinstalled kde5 as per Eric's instructions.

The result is that Dolphin is now working normally again (Hurrah!), but I have no idea what caused the problem in the first place (Boo!). Clearly a configuration issue - perhaps caused by a stale, left-over file? Who knows?

But its all working properly again now!

Many thanks for your help and suggestions!

I'm facing the very same issue. AlienBOB pointed me to this post.

I've noted that by moving the devices/folder boxes slider, then dolphin is capable to properly resize the folder box to fill the empty space. This is the workaround I'm using now as I can't just afford the time to wipe my entire ~/.kde right now.

If someone could come with a proper fix for that without wiping all the config out, please step in.

Interesting! When I tried the slider, I managed to shrink the folders down to a size that made them fit inside the "window", but it didn't affect the size of the reduced "window" at all. Clearly its a related issue though.

What graphics card / drivers are you using? My AMD / Ati machine (kernel drivers) didn't show the problem. My Intel machine (kernel drivers) did.

When I did the re-install, I went through the whole process as if I were upgrading from kde-4.14.3, even though I did this sometime ago. It did find a couple of stale files that shouldn't have been there, but previous to this latest update, KDE5 had been running perfectly.

As a stop-gap, until I got Dolphin sorted, I used Thunar. Not quite as convenient, but at least I could see what I was doing.....!

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Pete

It's not the folder size slider. Try the devices/folder box divider (see attachment). Resize the device area and the folder area will fill up its space.

I'm also using Intel drivers from kernel. It might be related to the bug.

UPDATE: I'm in AlienBOB's ktown latest, not testing.

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OK, I'm with you now - and I'm also using latest, not testing.

Sounds like it could be related to the Intel drivers then! Very strange! Also strange that re-installing kde5 in its entirety cured it!

Other than having identified some common factors, I'm not sure what else to suggest. I'm reasonably computer literate, but would not claim any great programming skills. Quite honestly, I wouldn't know where to begin in trying to trace such a strange bug!

Actually, it didn't take me too long to re-install kde5 - it was quite painless! I keep a local repository of both slackware64-current and Eric's Plasma5, as it makes updating two machines much quicker - I only have to download the changes once! It probably took less than an hour, and has solved the problem. Which I also cannot explain.....!

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Pete

This is now solved solved.

Alienbob's Plasma5 packages are almost unpatched except where necessary, so this is likely a KDE bug or quirk and not anything to do with AlienBob's packaging efforts.

There are files scattered in ~/.config that save the state of applications, including the placement of the window and other things. Try running:

And see if any such files appear. If so try blowing them away, rather than blowing away .kde. Not much is stored in there anymore anyway.