[SOLVED] dolphin and konqueror blanks content (LM 17)

[Vito49]

Sorry but this is not easy to explain for a non-English person, but let me try .... when I open dolphin or konqueror everything seems to be normal but when I high light an item (let's say a file) and move the mouse over the selected item the file disappears, it doesn't vanish completely from the list but the file becomes invisible as long as the mouse pointer is over the selected item, once the pointer leaves the item it shows up again.
Anybody an idea what this means?

Thanks

FYI ... I just installed the file manager "Krusader" and it doesn't produce the same phenomenon as Dolphin and Konqueror...

[thunder422]

Have you played with the colors? Perhaps you have some configuration where it's doing something like white on white when you hover it. On mine (with the default colors), clicking an item (I assume that's what you mean by "high light"), the item changes from black on white to blue on white. When hovering over it, the color doesn't change, but a popup appears with a light blue background showing a large icon, the name of the file plus some other information (like type, size, line count for a text file; or number of items for a folder). When hovering over a file that is not selected, the file name changes to light blue background with black text. By the way, that popup can be disabled (how I have my Mint 13 Dolphin configured) by going to Settings, Configure Dolphin..., General, and turning off "Show tooltips" (which has nothing to do with tool tips like for the tool bar buttons, which will still show tool tips for these when turned off).

If you did play with the colors, try setting back to the default colors. Go to System Settings, Application Appearance, Colors, and select Oxygen Cold. If you want to save your current colors first, select Save Scheme... and pick a new name (like "My Colors") and OK. This will show up on the list, so it will be easy to switch back. If the default colors don't exhibit the same behavior, then you have conflicting colors set in your colors. Select your colors again and then go to the Colors tab. Examine each color pair (for example View Background and View Text) and verify that none are set to the same color.

[Vito49]

Hello thunderr422, no I didn't play with the colors, it was kept to default ....
To be more accurate about my problem, when a file in dolphin is selected it shows a blue background with white text, when I hoover over it the background turns to white too so leaving the text invisible (white on white). I tried to change the colors but with no result. The only thing I could manage was changing the "selectiontext color" from white to black, but the selection background still disappears (or turns to white) when hoovering over the selection. Of course with black text the text doesn't disappear any more.

Any idea what I can check to get a blue selection background when hoovered (and please inform me where to find it)?
Many many thanks.

BTW: I don't think it's a dolphin issue because konqueror has the same problem.

Greetings from Aarschot/Belgium

[thunder422]

By the way if you don't already know, you need to select the Current scheme before selecting the Colors tab, otherwise you are just editing another Scheme, which does not take affect until that scheme is selected.

From what I've figured out, the hover color on an unselected item is a variation (lighter version) of the Selection Background color and there is no way to change that color. I've changed the selection color to Red and now the hover color on an unselected item is pink. The default selection color is Blue (specifically 67,172,252) with the Oxygen scheme (which I think is the default when Mint 17 KDE is installed). However, when I hover over a selected item (White text on Blue background), the color does not change when I hover over it (but the color of the adjacent icon does get a lighter color).

There's something else going on here and maybe the current Style or Window Decorations may have something to do with it, but I can't seem to reproduce your problem. I normally use the QtCurve style with the Seven Window Decorations (which I downloaded). The QtCurve style is highly configurable (and I've heavily modified it), but I didn't see any options that affect selection and hover colors. I tried changing back to the default Oxygen style and window decorations (both of which I hate), but again the selection and hover colors remain the same. By the way, what style and color scheme are you using?

I've tried changing to a dark color scheme (like "Zion (reversed)") from the default ("Oxygen") but the selection and hover colors (blue and light blue) remain the same, which looks pretty bad (hard to see). Again at no time does the color change when hovering over a selected item.

Did you try changing to another color scheme, hitting apply, then going back to the origin color scheme? I'm also curious if the same problem occurs if you create a new user?

[Vito49]

By the way, what style and color scheme are you using?

I normally use the oxygen schemes, but I tried the other possibilities too with no luck. Hoovering over a selected item makes the selection background go white (or disappear) ... that is very annoying when using the context menu.

Did you try changing to another color scheme, hitting apply, then going back to the origin color scheme?

yes I tried almost everything but with no luck. And as I said before, the problem doesn't exist when using file manager "Krusader", only with Dolphin and Konqueror.

I'm also curious if the same problem occurs if you create a new user?

I added a new user and ... in this account the problem does NOT exist! It works the way it should !! Hoovering over a selected item doesn't affect the background color. So it's obvious I probably did something wrong even I didn't play with the colors or styles or anything. Can something gone wrong with an update or so? Can I use some settings files from the new user into my account?

Please let me know if you have more suggestions to fix this. I already like to thank you for your help.

Greetings from Belgium.

[Vito49]

In order to find out what possibly could be the case I did the following, but with no result whatsoever:

1) in my home directory renamed folder ".kde" and let kde construct a new one when launched
2) renamed /root/kde en let KDE construct a new one on new launch

Because the new made user doesn't has this error there must be something in the home directory that produces this error, no?

Please let me know.

I can of course re-install KDE, but that's the Windows way, I prefer to find the exact cause ....

Many thanks in advance.
Greetings from a rainy and far too cold Aarschot.

[Vito49]

More info:
I have a dual boot sytem, LM with KDE and Manjaro with XFCE, both use the same /home directory which is located on a second hard drive sdb ...

1) can it be that both systems interfere with each other and cause this problem?
But I never had this before.

2) it's clear that the error resides in the home directory on the second hard drive
Is there a list of all config files used by KDE?

Many thanks for your help.

[thunder422]

Yes, sometimes something gets messed up in the configuration settings. I was going to suggest some of things you already tried. In addition, there is a .config directory where a log of configuration settings get saved, though there doesn't appear to be much KDE stuff in this (but there is a bunch of stuff in ~/.config/Trolltech.conf).

I have a problem on my Mint 13 where the programs are not sorting properly in the task manager at the bottom of the screen. This occurred with one of the KDE backport updates, I don't remember which one (had 4.8.5 originally, upgraded to 4.10.2 through 4.11.x, 4.12.x and now 4.13.0; and it's up to 4.13.2 now, but I haven't upgraded to it yet). I was hoping it would be corrected, but it appears not to be bug, but something wrong in my configuration. I've tried to fix it. In any case, again a new user doesn't have the problem, so it's something in the configuration files somewhere.

I you figured out, sometimes deleting the configuration (if you can figure out where the file is) and letting it recreate it will solve the problem. I have a problem that occurs with VLC every now and then. I prefer VLC to start in the resolution of the video, but at some point it insists on opening full screen. Changing the options inside VLC doesn't correct the problem. Removing VLC' s configuration file corrects the problem, but it forgets all my settings. At one point it was happening so often, that I created a script to delete the configuration file. What I have done since is to save the good configuration file as a backup. When it messes up, I compare to the good configuration file. I thinks it's like one of two lines that get messed up, so I just reset those lines from the good file.

The hard part is identifying the configuration file (VLC's was simply ~/.config/vlc/vlc-qt-interface.conf). I haven't searched deep enough yet to find the task managers configuration file (though I have tried). When you save a color configuration scheme, it goes to ~/.kde/share/apps/color-schemes, but if you haven't done this, this directory is empty.

Another trick you could try is to change the settings and then look for the file that was just modified (unfortunately, this hasn't worked in the case of my Task Manager problem). Also, since the new user doesn't have to problem, you could compare files between the two (a lot of work since there are so many configuration files). I wish there was a good list of KDE configuration files, but I haven't come across one yet. I don't think both systems using the same directory is the problem. XFCE will use its own configuration files.

[Vito49]

Hello thunder, thank you for your efforts to help me. And it helped me a lot: the problem is solved.

The error was located in the ~/.config/Trolltech.conf file, I compared the one in the 'normal' home folder and the one in the new user folder. There was a difference, this was missing in the normal one:

Code: Select all

font="DejaVu Sans,11,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0"
GUIEffects=none

So i had a good Belgian beer ("Omer") first and then renamed de normal Trolltech.conf file (I never delete config files immediately, I always rename them first). Then I restarted the PC and KDE ... the problem was solved. The Trolltech.conf was created with the missing lines in it. Of course I cannot be 100 % sure these 2 lines are the cause because there are so many lines. And at first sight everything else works the normal way.

I'm very glad the problem is solved.
I like to thank you very much for your help.

All the best from Belgium!