Bug 508614

Summary: Configured weather station is frequently lost
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Nate Graham <nate>
Component: Weather widgetAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: ASSIGNED ---    
Severity: normal CC: aoeui, bogdan.onofriuchuk, isma.af, notmart
Priority: NOR Keywords: regression
Version First Reported In: 6.4.80   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: KDE Linux   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Nate Graham 2025-08-22 16:58:55 UTC
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Have no pre-existing config data for any Weather Report widgets (so Bug 506810 is not a factor)
2. Set up Weather Report widget with a location of your choice (mine is a NOAA station)
3. Use the system normally over a few days, rebooting occasionally


OBSERVED RESULT
Weather Report widget sometimes become unconfigured, and enters the "click here to set me up" state


EXPECTED RESULT
Weather report continues to show the weather


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: KDE Linux 2025-08-22
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.80
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.18.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1
Kernel Version: 6.16.1-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7840U w/ Radeon™ 780M Graphics
Memory: 16 GiB of RAM (14.9 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon 780M Graphics


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I'm sorry this is a terrible bug report that says "it randomly stops working". I know.

But it has happened twice now in the past two weeks: after restarting plasmashell or the computer, the widget reverts to an unconfigured state.

I haven't figure out the pattern, if there is any.
Comment 1 Bogdan Onofriuchuk 2025-08-22 17:42:45 UTC
What if you restart again? Is it show the correct forecast? Are other configuration is broken too (like units or appearance)? I can't reproduce the issue. I have been using it for some time and haven't had such issue.
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2025-08-25 21:57:37 UTC
The widget enters its "unconfigured" state, so there is no forecast, units, or appearance.

I haven't tried restarting a second time to see if that fixes it. I'll try the next time it happens.
Comment 3 Bogdan Onofriuchuk 2025-08-26 19:09:04 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #2)
> The widget enters its "unconfigured" state, so there is no forecast, units,
> or appearance.

Yes, but you can enter the configure page. No? (Right click on the weather widget and "Configure weather report")
It should show some information about your configuration like "Location" and "Provider". Also there is the "Appearance" tab.
Are there anything lost that lost settings too? If you can please check it if the bug will appear again.
Comment 4 Ismael Asensio 2025-08-26 19:43:53 UTC
I have a slight suspicion on why this could happen under some race condition when reading the configuration.

If you can reproduce it again, could you also check if the station properties are still on the config file?
That would be on `~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc`, 
under the section `[Containments][..][Applets][..][Applets][..][Configuration][WeatherStation]`  (with custom numbers for your config)
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2025-08-26 22:30:58 UTC
Ok, I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks guys!
Comment 6 Bug Janitor Service 2025-09-10 03:48:25 UTC
🐛🧹 ⚠️ This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 15 days. Please provide the requested information, then set the bug status to REPORTED. If there is no change for at least 30 days, it will be automatically closed as RESOLVED WORKSFORME.

For more information about our bug triaging procedures, please read https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging.

Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!
Comment 7 Nate Graham 2025-09-19 04:51:14 UTC
It happened again.

$ rg -A 3 WeatherStation ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc

288:[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1817][Configuration][WeatherStation]
289-placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
290-placeInfo=[REDACTED]
291-provider=noaa
--
389:[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1841][Configuration][WeatherStation]
390-placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
391-placeInfo=[REDACTED]
392-provider=noaa
--
558:[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1905][Configuration][WeatherStation]
559-placeDisplayName=Berlin-Brandenburg
560-placeInfo=Berlin-Brandenburg|10385
561-provider=dwd
--
678:[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][2027][Configuration][WeatherStation]
679-placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
680-placeInfo=[REDACTED]
681-provider=noaa

[REDACTED] is my home location, and what the weather station should be. Berlin-Brandenburg is what I had my weather widget configured to during Akademy, and it just switched to that again randomly.

I do not have four weather widgets, so the presence of four copies of this config data is unusual to me. I have one widget, in the System Tray.
Comment 8 Ismael Asensio 2025-09-19 08:54:54 UTC
Thanks! That is quite useful at least to follow-up the chain of events

> I do not have four weather widgets, so the presence of four copies of this config data is unusual to me. I have one widget, in the System Tray.

For regular containments, the id of the included applets are stored in the config, as the can be customly placed by the user, for instance this would be the list of applets contained in my panel
      [Containments][1184][General]
      AppletOrder=568;224;544;213;214;193;577;225;573;592;511;6;370;258;578

But on the tray configuration ([Containments][1184][Applets][1349][General]) we don't store an id list, but a list of known named plugins (ex. `org.kde.plasma.weather`)

So in some sense, it is like the system tray is "creating" those "new" applets though. Or more likely, failing at find the previous config id for the weather applet, and creating a new one. 

My guess is that the applet is somehow trying to access the config group before the actual groups are loaded, which results in creating a new group, instead of reusing the already saved.
Comment 9 Marco Martin 2025-09-23 11:09:26 UTC
I suspect it might be an issue of it being in the systray (i have one in the desktop and i never had a reset like that at least recently).

when the reset happens, i would suspect that the systray for some reason creates a new applet with a new id rather than using an existing config
Comment 10 Marco Martin 2025-09-23 11:46:47 UTC
do all those groups only have the group
[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][xxx][Configuration][WeatherStation]

or is it also present somewhere a group which is just
[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][xxx]

I would suspect only one of those[Configuration] groups has the short version
Comment 11 Nate Graham 2025-09-23 14:49:40 UTC
Each one has a corresponding short version:


[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1817][Configuration][WeatherStation]
placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
placeInfo=[REDACTED]
provider=noaa
source=noaa|weather|[REDACTED; SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!!]

[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1817]
immutability=1
plugin=org.kde.plasma.weather



[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1841][Configuration][WeatherStation]
placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
placeInfo=[REDACTED]
provider=noaa
source=noaa|weather|[REDACTED]

[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1841]
immutability=1
plugin=org.kde.plasma.weather



[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1905][Configuration][WeatherStation]
placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
placeInfo=[REDACTED]
provider=noaa
source=noaa|weather|[REDACTED; SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!!]

[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][1905]
immutability=1
plugin=org.kde.plasma.weather



[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][2027][Configuration][WeatherStation]
placeDisplayName=[REDACTED]
placeInfo=[REDACTED]
provider=noaa
source=noaa|weather|[REDACTED]

[Containments][1184][Applets][1349][Applets][2027]
immutability=1
plugin=org.kde.plasma.weather
Comment 12 Bug Janitor Service 2025-10-03 20:57:10 UTC
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kdeplasma-addons/-/merge_requests/925