Invisible menus and tooltips?

[Ocirne94]

Hello all,
I have a strange issue where some applications have invisible menus.
Examples:
- In KTorrent the all the menus are invisible; the menu bar works fine (the button stays highlighted after clicking), each menu is there but is invisible (confirmed by clicking at random below the clicked button). Same for right-click menus.
- In Firefox (58) all the buttons of the default toolbar have that same behavior (invisible effect): for example the "download" button (to the right of the address bar in the default configuration) should show a panel with the ongoing/completed downloads, it is there but again invisible. Same for the quick-bookmarking button. Instead the menus from the menu bar work just fine. Also in Firefox all the image tooltips are missing (presumably invisible too?).
- In Okular all the menus are invisible (from the menu bar, the toolbar and right-click).

Some applications which appear to work fine instead: konsole, gimp, chromium, vlc, dolphin, ksysguard.

Kubuntu 16.04.03, Qt 5.6.1, KDE Frameworks 5.36.0.

Any tips? Thank you!

[Snowhog]

See this thread: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...ight=tool+tips

[jglen490]

In terms of Firefox 58.0, the download arrow only shows during and after a download. If you clear the download list, the download arrow disappears. It's now designed that way. In the Tools dropdown menu, the first entry is the Downloads box and History. The download arrow's display behavior has changed, but it kind of makes sense because if you have nothing in your download list, why display the arrow when it can't do anything.

[chimak111]

Just to address the download arrow in Firefox 57 onward, if one wants the arrow to always be visible, click on Customize and then click on the download arrow. A little pop-up (?) appears to give the user the choice to autohide the download arrow.

[jglen490]

That works, but it doesn't do much. if you have no current downloads listed, it just says "No downloads for this session" and shows a link to the Downloads menu, which is already in the Tools drop down. So I just turned Autohide back on; the arrow will show up the next time I download something. Until then ...

[jpc2769]

I am having the same problem with Okular, is there a fix?

[jpc2769]

Does anyone know if there is a fix for this? I tried reinstalling Okular through the Muon Package Manager, it did not fix the problem…

[GreyGeek]

Snowhog recommended this thread:
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...ight=tool+tips

Did you visit that thread?
It could be that you have the wrong theme installed.

[jpc2769]

Thanks, I did see that thread, but it doesn't describe the problem I am having.

My problem is only in Okular, and there are no menus whatsoever, not black-on-black text as described in the thread. Not even a blank box of the size and shape that the menu would be if it were there; simply nothing, and only in Okular. And I have never changed the theme of Okular. While I have changed the system theme, it has been quite some time since I did so and this problem only started recently.

[jlittle]

I would suspect something in your user configuration has gone awry. A quick (ish) way to check that is to add another user and see if the problem occurs logged in as that user.

If it doesn't, a next step might be try and identify what in your set-up has changed. F. ex. in a konsole:

$ find . -newermt "last monday" | more

(the date can be in many formats, and there may be pages of stuff to ignore).

Another could be to rename .config to .config-old, log out and back in, check for the problem, then rename it back, log out and in. If that affects the problem, cd into .config and investigate there. Repeat for .local and other dot files in your home directory.

Consider also cutting your losses and wipe and reinstall after backing up your data. The point where that will save time only you can judge, but it can be surprisingly early for some. (Not me... though I have wasted lots of time and effort through stubbornly chasing problems long past when I should have reinstalled.)

Here I must make a plug for the benefits of using btrfs with regular snapshots, particularly before updates (if I don't GreyGeek will). With btrfs one has easy options for going back in time, either to investigate or to undo stuff.

Regards, John Little

[GreyGeek]

Someone in another thread with a similar problem found that changing the compositor to xrender to fix it.
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post417824

[jpc2769]

Thanks, I'll give it a try!

[jpc2769]

Here I must make a plug for the benefits of using btrfs with regular snapshots, particularly before updates (if I don't GreyGeek will). With btrfs one has easy options for going back in time, either to investigate or to undo stuff.

Regards, John Little

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try them out! What is "BTRFS"?

[jpc2769]

Someone in another thread with a similar problem found that changing the compositor to xrender to fix it.
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post417824

Thanks, this did it!

[GreyGeek]

... What is "BTRFS"?

What is BTRFS he asks?

Just the only file system I will ever use (unless I am using a server for databases and virtual drives).