network manager QML broken after update

[woodsmoke]

It is CURIOUS that this has happened ONLY twice. And BOTH times it occurred at a critical time. A) first time several years ago when I was demonstrating Kubuntu to some of the muckety mucks at the college advocating for using a .xls spreadsheet for inventory control as opposed to a multi-thousand dollar program (still no computerized inventory control btw) B) today JUST when I had to submit end of semester documents,

First time was on a stable system, would not find the wifi which it had found for weeks prior to the demonstration.
This time directly after an update as of this instant, 4:32 central time United States wifi disappeared.

The normal network manager icon in the tray is replaced with a sort of "white box" with some indistinguishable text. When clicked this is shown:

error loading QML file: file: ///user share /plasma/plasmoids/.org.kde plasma network manger.

A bunch of other text basically restating the prior.

Morals to this sad tale:
a) ALWAYS backup your data.
b) ALWAYS have a working backup hard drive or working backup usb or a live cd.
c) NEVER let them see you sweat!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

well I did all of the standard fixes, restarting network manager from cli etc.
reinstalled ndiswrapper, etc. nope
installed Wicd, nope.
installed Wifi Radar, nope.

So now I have two partially broken systems, Xerius won't get on the net with wifi which I need it to do.
Wiley won't do kde connect, which I need it to do.

So, unless someone has a quick fix I'll limp along with Wiley for the nonce, but will then have to reinstall or install netrunner maybe. never thought I'd be sayin' THAT!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Using this fix from a post by Darin Miller in another thread the network manager is now working:

sudo apt install libkf5networkmanagerqt6=5.18.0-0ubuntu1

This regresses the app but it does work.

Darin suggested doing a "kill all" which i did and received a blank screen and had to shut down the computer with the on off switch.

I repeated it without using the kill all and also went to settings to change to "not saving the session" and upon restart the network manager was there and worked.

Unfortunately, an "update" immediately appeared and I did it, and it just reinstalled the newer app and the network went away, so I repeated the command and it worked and I did not do the update, restarted with the session being saved and the network manager works.

This is not "solved" except in a temporary fashion, if other updates appear I will have to search through them and de-select the update to network manager.

As I stated in the other thread, this is going to get "dicey' for folks with the problem, when a REAL fix appears, how will we know that it is there and not have to repeat the process and ignore the update?

It is gently suggested that there might be a notification at the forum or something that the update rolled out after such and such date or named in such and such a manner is the working update.

just a suggestion.

i'm grateful to Darin for the fix.

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Received an update for 8 items as of this instant which included:

libkf5networkmanagerqt6=5.18.0-0ubuntu1.2

notice the "two".

It took a restart but the network manager is now working.

This thread can be marked SOLVED.

But, also a big shoutout to Darin for the workaround.

woodsmoke