Nautilus loses history

[rikona]

Hello Nils,

I'm replying to 2 emails here....

Saturday, November 5, 2016, 12:30:20 AM, Nils wrote:

> rikona wrote:
>> Wednesday, November 2, 2016, 11:01:59 PM, Nils wrote:
>> > rikona wrote:
>> >> Wednesday, November 2, 2016, 8:00:56 AM, Nils wrote:
>> > I would suggest to uninstall kubuntu-desktop. Then run the command
>> > sudo apt-get autoremove
>> > which should uninstall all the packages which were not installed
>> > before. However that may not be the end of the story because it only
>> > clears the system from the possibly infringing package. There may be
>> > additional config files now in your $HOME/.config or $HOME/.local
>> > folders which cause the problem, but I can't tell you which file it
>> > is.
>> 
>> I did the above, but it did not stop any of the problems I still see.
>> It didn't uninstall some KDE apps I had installed earlier, but it did
>> foul them up in multiple ways. BEFORE the desktop install, the KDE
>> apps were reasonably well behaved in Unity - now they're a mess. The
>> big problems are with the Ubuntu desktop. The kubuntu desktop install
>> REALLY messed it up!
>> 
>> AFTER doing the uninstall, I have a few NEW problems I didn't see
>> before - example - when I try to log on to another box via the LAN,
>> kwallet asks for my password, which I never gave to it, [and, kwallet
>> doesn't exist according to apt]. SO, without the password/wallet, I
>> can't log in to the other box!

> Hmm, that looks quite bad. How do you login to the other box - via
> ssh? 

From some file manage GUI. If it's a KDE FM, such as konq, then I get
the wallet problem. This problem started after the UNinstall - it was
NOT there after the kde desktop INstall. It seems like the uninstall
messed up some kde files that are still needed by the KDE apps I
installed originally under Ubuntu.

If I use the 'files' GUI, though, I can still log on by giving the
other box user/pw - that still works.


> Anyway, if kwallet asks for a password, it must be there.

Not that I can find. It's not clear that the popup is kwallet. No
matter what I do it just goes away with nothing happening. Might be
something else that then calls kwallet. kwallet seems to be a
'complex' of several pgms.

> Either it is in the package kwalletmanager or in kde-runtime.

I don't have kwalletmanager, but kde-runtime may be there under
user/share/lintian/overrides [strange sounding location?]. I just saw
on the net that kwallet is supposedly part of kde-runtime, so I am
stuck with it.

> If it is the latter, it is probably a dependency of every KDE
> application.

If that is what was changed, it might explain why I am seeing the
wallet problem in kde apps.

>> I was checking re config files, and there seems to be hundreds of them
>> spread out all over the place. Some are probably associated with the
>> earlier KDE installs, but may have been modified by the desktop
>> install [like now asking for the wallet].
>> 
>> It's not clear how, or even if, this can be fixed. Is the best
>> approach to just do an Ubuntu reinstall from scratch?
>> 
>> If I do a reinstall WITHOUT doing a full format, will it see that I am
>> installing the same thing and keep the existing config files that may
>> be causing the problems?

> The problematic config files are stored in your $HOME and they
> wouldn't be touched if you reinstall without formatting. So that's
> not really helpful. Another option would be to reinstall
> kubuntu-desktop and live with the nautilus issue.

Installing kubuntu-desktop did cause many problems, several of which I
did not mention. I don't want that.

> At least the other issues introduced by uninstalling kubuntu-desktop
> should be reversed. Or uninstall the other KDE applications you had
> installed manually.

I tried that with konq, but reinstalling that did not fix it, so I
didn't uninstall all the kde apps installed originally..

>> I do have a recent backup of home, but if I restore that will that
>> just bring back the bad config files? One possibility that occurs to
>> me is to take off all the hidden files from the recent backup, restore
>> the rest of the data, and then place hidden files from an older
>> backup done before the desktop install. This might give me much of
>> what I had, with some work and history lost.

> If you leave away the hidden files you might get a usable state. But 
> some hidden files are probably useful to preserve, like ~/.bash* ~/.ssh
> ~/.wine ~/.mozilla ~/.thunderbird (if they exist).

>> Another thought is, since the Ubuntu desktop is messed up, might it be
>> a good idea to reinstall THAT desktop and see if it might fix things?

> Of course you could try this option, but again I'm rather sure the 
> problem is caused by config files in your $HOME and they are never 
> touched by installing / uninstalling packages.

----------------------------------------

> Colin Law wrote:

>> Rikona stated previously that logging on as a different user did not
>> help. If that is still the case then the problem is not with files in
>> his home directory.  In that case re-installing Ubuntu (the complete
>> OS) without re-formatting should solve the problem as it will
>> re-install all non user specific config.

> I thought the test with the other user resulted in the same nautilus 
> issue. But are the other new problems the same?

Yes - I just checked again and see the same problems with all users.

As an indication of how badly the Ubuntu desktop is currently messed
up, when I went back to my usual user, the desktop came up completely
messed up. No side icons, no top bar, and extra stuff on the screen. I
was considering a reboot, but in trying a few things to get a
terminal, or some way to reboot, it did mostly come back. Really needs
fixing though...

> If they are the same for the other user I would agree with your
> assumption.

It looks like the install/uninstall of kubuntu-desktop messed up some
non-user config files related to kde apps. If I uninstall ALL the kde
apps, it might still leave these there - a reinstall of konq, for
example, did not fix it. So, even if I re-install Ubuntu to fix the
Ubuntu part, which is broken and necessary to fix, I may still have
the kde problems continuing. Does that sound right?

It's beginning to look like a complete reinstall with format may be
necessary. What do you think?

It also sounds like I should NOT restore home from the latest backup,
but use one from BEFORE the kde desktop install. Does that sound right
as well?

Many thanks to you and Colin for the help!

-- 

 rikona