Bug 254325

Summary: Some (not all) dashboard widgets drawn with old state while the desktop ones are up to date.
Product: [Unmaintained] plasma4 Reporter: Justin <jtgeibel>
Component: dashboardAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED    
Severity: normal CC: anderslund, annma, erik.esterer, info, jon33040, KaiUweBroulik2, martin.ruessler
Priority: NOR    
Version: 4.8.1   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Ubuntu   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Screenshot of frozen clock and song widgets.
screenshot showing frozen clock

Description Justin 2010-10-16 05:06:11 UTC
Created attachment 52559 [details]
Screenshot of frozen clock and song widgets.

Version:           unspecified (using KDE 4.5.2) 
OS:                Linux

Notable widgets:
* Current Song ( http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Current+Song?content=129891 )
* CPU Monitor
* Analog Clock

I was trying out the current song widget remotely over the network, with Amarok playing on another computer.  I opened the widget dashboard and noticed that the album art didn't update when the song changed.  At first I thought this was only a problem with the one widget (or widget sharing), but then I observed more unusual behavior.

With all my windows minimized and the dashboard open I noticed that the CPU widget was refreshing, but the clock widget seemed to be frozen in time.  However, I could see the desktop version with the correct time shining through from behind.

So 2 frozen widgets, 1 drawn correctly and a few others which I can't be sure about.

Another notable thing is that clicking on the current song widget advanced the song but the visual data was out of date (and no mouseover hover effect).  The current song was shown up-to-date on the desktop.

After a few minutes the clock widget became unfrozen.  A few minutes later the song widget was OK as well.  I was able to reproduce the cycle at least one additional time.

The extra minute hand and song text can be seen in the attached screenshot.

Reproducible: Always



Expected Results:  
Widgets are drawn in the same way when rendered to the desktop and the dashboard.
Comment 1 Kai Uwe Broulik 2010-10-17 22:33:46 UTC
Also see my bug report about Sticky Notes not changing/adapting color when color changed via dashboard: Bug 249174
Comment 2 Justin 2010-10-20 05:57:14 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Also see my bug report about Sticky Notes not changing/adapting color when
> color changed via dashboard: Bug 249174

I was just able to replicate your bug and saw that this results in a frozen analog clock for me.

Once I had reproduced the bug, I couldn't get the color change to affect the dashboard until the problem "timed out" and the dashboard became unfrozen.  It did not matter where I initiated the color change from (dashboard/desktop) the problem was the same.

It seems that remote widget sharing was probably not a contributing factor in my original bug report.

I'm on Ubuntu 10.10
Comment 3 Anders Lund 2011-03-24 11:52:19 UTC
Examples: Clock does not update while displayed on dashboard. YaWP, which can be clicked to display various information is not updated. It looks like only plasmoids with widgets is updated actually.
Comment 4 Cyril Brosch 2011-03-31 17:52:12 UTC
I confirm for the picture frame plasmoid with SC 4.6.1.
Comment 5 Martin 2011-12-03 15:47:29 UTC
Both binary and analog clock work fine for me on KDE 4.7.3. Do you still have freezing plasmoids?
Comment 6 Anders Lund 2011-12-03 16:44:26 UTC
show the dashboard with the analog clock on it, and wait some minutes: the clock hands does not move when displayed at the dashboard, as expected.

show the dashboard with the yaWP (yet another weather plasmoid) on it. This plasmoid can be clicked to display different views. When clicked on the dashboard, the view does not changed, but when returning to the desktop, you can see that it changed there.

So, the problem is that the dashboard appears to be a static image, instead of a functional dashboard. Plasmoids with widgets on them (for example eventlist) works though, and tooltips are displayed. Just the image isn't updated when the plasmoid is.
Comment 7 Martin 2011-12-03 17:02:14 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> show the dashboard with the analog clock on it, and wait some minutes: the
> clock hands does not move when displayed at the dashboard, as expected.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, sorry about that. I did use those clocks on the dashboard and they worked as expected. I can also use the dictionary plasmoid, for example. For the yaWP I can't tell. Have you tried updating to the most recent version? And, what KDE version are you using right now?
Comment 8 Anders Lund 2011-12-03 18:06:47 UTC
I am using KDE 4.7.3 on archlinux.

The analog clock which comes with KDE is *not* ticking on the dashboard. Exept if you turn on the second hand, it appears, but turning it off again, the clock stops, I tried waiting for several minutes. Hiding/showing the dashboard it looks like it is not even updating the clock for a new display.

Plasmoids with widgets appears to work, I can scroll in the eventlist and so on. The yaWP is a custom widget, which paints itself. It is possible that some signal that plasma depends on is missing. I use the latest version of yaWP.
Comment 9 Anders Lund 2011-12-03 18:11:57 UTC
In fact, the missing update of the time is a *bad* bug - right now, dashboard + analog clock will show the time 5 mins ago when i did the last test :0
Comment 10 Justin 2011-12-03 19:06:45 UTC
I just confirmed that I still see this behavior on 4.7.2.  I am running on Kubuntu 11.10.

After activating the dashboard and waiting a few minutes, I see that the clock on the dashboard is not updated and falls behind the clock shown on the desktop.  Additionally, for the next wallpaper widget, the icon does not become more saturated when I hover over it on the dashboard (like it does on the desktop).

I do not observe any such lag or inconstancy in behavior with the CPU monitor or folder view widgets.
Comment 11 Anne-Marie Mahfouf 2011-12-03 19:55:49 UTC
So when the dashboard shows the desktop widgets:
- analog clock without second hand does not update time
- digital clock does not update time regularly but only from time to time. Tooltip shows the correct time though.
- worldclock does not update time and does not accept mouse over
- analog clock with second hand works fine and updates time correctly
- battery widget does not accpet mouse hover so does not display charge percentage

With an independent set of widgets on the dashboard, all the above work fine.
Comment 12 Anne-Marie Mahfouf 2011-12-03 19:59:46 UTC
*** Bug 273958 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Thomas 2012-03-12 10:20:28 UTC
The clock still freezes in KDE 4.8.1 (arch linux).
Comment 14 jon33040 2014-02-09 09:25:35 UTC
I see the same thing here - the clock in the dashboard doesn't update. Attached is a screen capture showing the difference between the dashboard clock and a desktop clock.

The dashboard clock only updates when I change virtual desktop or change the windows on the current desktop.

This is with kubuntu with KDE 4.12.0 from the current kubuntu-backports repository.
Comment 15 jon33040 2014-02-09 09:26:51 UTC
Created attachment 85061 [details]
screenshot showing frozen clock
Comment 16 Nate Graham 2018-06-08 19:01:03 UTC
Hello!

This bug report was filed for KDE Plasma 4, which reached end-of-support status in August 2015. KDE Plasma 5's desktop shell has been almost completely rewritten for better performance and usability, so it is likely that this bug is already resolved in Plasma 5.

Accordingly, we hope you understand why we must close this bug report. If the issue described  here is still present in KDE Plasma 5.12 or later, please feel free to open a new ticket in the "plasmashell" product after reading https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Bug_Reporting

If you would like to get involved in KDE's bug triaging effort so that future mass bug closes like this are less likely, please read https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved#Bug_Triaging

Thanks for your understanding!

Nate Graham