Bug 361753

Summary:	Activities marked “stopped” without reason
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Tommi Nieminen <tommi.nieminen>
Component:	Activity Switcher sidebar	Assignee:	Ivan Čukić <ivan.cukic>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	dener.kup, plasma-bugs-null
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	5.5.5
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	openSUSE
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Tommi Nieminen 2016-04-14 07:33:13 UTC

I have tried using activities in Plasma 5 as a of substitute for the lost feature of virtual desktops with different widgets each. Trouble is, every once in a while, particularly after a reboot, one or more of the activities are marked “Stopped” without any apparent reason.

It is still possible to switch to a stopped activity using Win+Q but NOT with Win+Tab or a shortcut key bound to that activity. Worst of all, there seems to be no way to UNSTOP the activity. Whatever you do there—open programs, open new windows etc.—doesn’t matter.

I cannot provide an exact way to reproduce this since it seems haphazard. Usually the only way to unstop an activity that’s gone to a stopped state is to delete it and create a new one. Up until the next reboot there’s a good chance that all activities stay “running”.

Comment 1 Ivan Čukić 2016-05-02 16:45:07 UTC

Hi Tommi,

Can you do the following, so that we can see what is going on here. Go to https://quickgit.kde.org/?p=kactivities.git&a=blob&h=f4951063216d995695240abe117369c61c84d078&hb=e476be5250a369e899d1b1c9775671d3a245b7f9&f=contrib%2Fzsh%2Fkamd-functions and download that file. It defines a couple of nice convenient functions for ZSH (it might need minor modifications to be used with BASH, I haven't tried).

Open konsole, and do
    source kamd-functions
and then, in the same konsole session:
    kamd_listactivities

It should show all the activities, along with their states. Copy the id of one of the stopped ones, and try to start it from the terminal:
    qdbus org.kde.ActivityManager /ActivityManager/Activities StartActivity PASTE_THE_ID_HERE

Then run kamd_listactivities again. Did anything change?

Comment 2 Denis Kuplyakov 2016-05-02 18:21:00 UTC

Hello Ivan!

Maybe my output also can be helpfull.  Problematic activity is the one that [STARTING].

Here is the output:

21:17:31  ~/tmp 
$ source kamd-functions 

 21:17:34  ~/tmp 
$ kamd_listactivities 
Service version: 6.2.0
[STOPPED] de709d6c-3d25-45af-9699-197cb2371fbd Technoblabla (preferences-activities)
[RUNNING] 2fcababc-b090-4846-932e-79887cc431b7 VideoTracking (preferences-activities)
[STARTING] 3eff8dee-079c-49e8-ba76-0fb7d83feb6c Диплом (Написание диплома и презентации, )
[CURRENT] 8947586a-ed78-472e-a2e3-14de917ccc54 Стандратная (preferences-activities)

 21:17:39  ~/tmp 
$ qdbus org.kde.ActivityManager /ActivityManager/Activities StartActivity 3eff8dee-079c-49e8-ba76-0fb7d83feb6c


 21:18:41  ~/tmp 
$ kamd_listactivities 
Service version: 6.2.0
[STOPPED] de709d6c-3d25-45af-9699-197cb2371fbd Technblabla (preferences-activities)
[RUNNING] 2fcababc-b090-4846-932e-79887cc431b7 VideoTracking (preferences-activities)
[STARTING] 3eff8dee-079c-49e8-ba76-0fb7d83feb6c Диплом (Написание диплома и презентации, )
[CURRENT] 8947586a-ed78-472e-a2e3-14de917ccc54 Стандратная (preferences-activities)

Comment 3 Ivan Čukić 2016-05-02 19:55:57 UTC

What happens if you do it for the stopped one, and not the starting one?

Comment 4 Denis Kuplyakov 2016-05-02 20:58:15 UTC

(In reply to Ivan Čukić from comment #3)
> What happens if you do it for the stopped one, and not the starting one?

It is now Running and showing correctly in Win-Q and Win-Tab.

$ kamd_listactivities
Service version: 6.2.0
[RUNNING] de709d6c-3d25-45af-9699-197cb2371fbd Technosphere (preferences-activities)
[RUNNING] 2fcababc-b090-4846-932e-79887cc431b7 VideoTracking (preferences-activities)
[STARTING] 3eff8dee-079c-49e8-ba76-0fb7d83feb6c Диплом (Написание диплома и презентации, )
[CURRENT] 8947586a-ed78-472e-a2e3-14de917ccc54 Стандратная (preferences-activities)

Little offtopic: it seems string [Stopped] is showing in black in konsole and isn't visible on black background

Comment 5 Ivan Čukić 2016-10-24 16:10:00 UTC

This should be fixed in the latest Plasma 5.8.x. Forgot to close the report.

If the issue appears again, please reopen the report.

Comment 6 Denis Kuplyakov 2016-10-24 17:39:43 UTC

(In reply to Ivan Čukić from comment #5)
> This should be fixed in the latest Plasma 5.8.x. Forgot to close the report.
> 
> If the issue appears again, please reopen the report.

Thanks for the fixes!