SUMMARY
Since the upgrade to 6.0.1, and persisting til 6.1.0, unless one enters edit mode, a panel with nothing but icons only task manager -- which is to say, a dock -- appears as a panel of minimum width containing absolutely no icons. Entering edit mode causes the panel to begin to behave as expected; crashes to kwin reset to the useless state also. In said useless state, clicking on the (visually devoid of icons) panel will open apps meant to be in the task manager, in some vague correlate to their left-to-right, though again, the icons are gone and the panel is at minimum length.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
The problem is visible upon login in the absence of any user action. It happens in the absence of any user behavior. It is strictly limited to wayland. entering edit mode "fixes" the problem.

EXPECTED RESULT
When turning on the system, panels should... exist, I guess.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Linux/KDE Plasma: Arch zen 6.9.5
KDE Plasma Version: 6.any 
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.3
Qt Version: 6.7.1

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This started somewhere around plasma 6.0.2, but reversion doesn't help. 
changing to 6.1 does not fix the bug, but has the *added bug* that the panel, until edit mode is entered, is now on the left of the screen instead of centered.