Problem with ksycoca

Beginner

Location: Italy

Monday, February 12th 2007, 12:07pm

Hi,

this is my first post on this newsgroup; I've a problem with kde-3.5.6 builded from sources.
When executed, ksycoca says that it cannot find the database and I can't understand what database is it looking for...

I have this error when I execute startkde and also if i execute kbuildsycoca directly from the console.
The output of the command execution is

bash-3.2# kbuildsycoca --incremental
kbuildsycoca running...
Reusing existing ksycoca
kio (KSycoca): ERROR: No database available!
kbuildsycoca: WARNING: 'katepart.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'text/x-fortran'
kbuildsycoca: WARNING: 'kcertpart.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'application/binary-certificate'
kbuildsycoca: WARNING: 'knotify.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'KNotify'
bash-3.2#

Searching in google I found that this command should construct the database in /var/tmp... and I have this file:
bash-3.2# ls -al /var/tmp/kdecache-root/
totale 541
drwx------ 4 root root 152 11 feb 21:52 .
drwxrwxrwt 3 root root 80 11 feb 20:34 ..
drwx------ 2 root root 280 11 feb 21:48 favicons
drwx------ 16 root root 408 11 feb 21:51 http
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 546214 11 feb 21:52 ksycoca
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 714 11 feb 21:52 ksycocastamp
bash-3.2#

Again, I found that this file should be linked in /tmp/kde... and also this symlink is on my system:
bash-3.2# ls -al /tmp/kde-root/ksycoca
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 11 feb 21:40 /tmp/kde-root/ksycoca -> /var/tmp/kdecache-root/ksycoca
bash-3.2#

I also tried to delete /var/tmp/kdecache-root and restart kbuildsycoca again, but the problem is still present.

Suggestions?

Thanks, bye bye

PS: I'm sorry for my poor english

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Rinse

Professional

Posts: 797

2

Monday, February 12th 2007, 1:43pm

it's not a problem i guess: you start something from kde as root, kde can't find a ksycoca database and creates a new one.

this is the created ksycoca file:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 546214 11 feb 21:52 ksycoca

kbuildsycoca as root gives me this output:

# kbuildsycoca
kbuildsycoca running...
Reusing existing ksycoca
kio (KSycoca): ERROR: No database available!

I think it is because kbuildsycoca deletes the database before building a new one and kio notices that and gives a error message...

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Rinse" (Feb 12th 2007, 1:46pm)

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Rinse

Professional

Posts: 797

3

Monday, February 12th 2007, 1:50pm

Quoted

kbuildsycoca: WARNING: 'katepart.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'text/x-fortran'
kbuildsycoca: WARNING: 'kcertpart.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'application/binary-certificate'
kbuildsycoca: WARNING: 'knotify.desktop' specifies undefined mimetype/servicetype 'KNotify'

These errors happen when kbuildsycoca reads the .desktop files of applications and mime types to create the database.
The .desktop files it complains about contain information that tell kde that the application the desktop file belongs to can handle a certain mime type, but that mime type is not available.

e.g. katepart kan read 'text/x-fortran' files, but that mime type is not known to your kde installation.

Those errors aren't a problem (unless you can't open fortran-files, in that case you create the mime type yourself first), and in this case it tells you that kbuildsycoca is functioning correctly

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Rinse" (Feb 12th 2007, 1:52pm)

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devx

Beginner

Posts: 2

Location: Italy

4

Monday, February 12th 2007, 2:01pm

Hi Rinse,

thank you very much for the fast and complete reply!

Bye bye

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George Mitchell

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Posts: 2

Location: Eureka cA

5

Tuesday, February 20th 2007, 11:39pm

ksycoca mimetype issue ...

Well, I'm glad this answer provides a resolution for some users. It certainly doesn't for me. Log files like .xsession-errors become next to useless for troubleshooting REAL problems when they become filled with unnecessary garbage like these ksycoca mimetype complaints. A couple of suggestions:

1) Messages like these should be labeled "INFO", not "WARNING". "WARNING" implies that something is indeed wrong and in this case that is not necessarily true according to the previous posts on this thread.

2) KDE needs to start to implement more compatibility with LSB and freedesktop.org projects. A number of these errors would be eliminated if KDE simply recognized freedesktop.org's XML mimetype definitions stored in /usr/share/mime. And such things as recognizing the application "Type=Link" defined by freedesktop.org, but not by KDE in KDE 3.5.4 (Gnome is compliant, by the way).

3) KDE also needs to start implementing more compatibility with itself. A number of the offending apps are, in fact, KDE apps, and should be PROVIDING definitions for the mime types they, themselves, reference.

I know the answer to these suggestions is that all this is low priority and there are more important things to deal with, but that answer sounds painfully like the sort of answer one hears from the proprietary vendors and translates to "we don't care about quality, new whiz bang features are the priority". But whiz bang features don't mean a whole lot to those of us who use a computer to actually get work done and depend on error log files to deal with real important system maintenance issues.

- George Mitchell

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "George Mitchell" (Feb 20th 2007, 11:41pm)

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George Mitchell

Beginner

Posts: 2

Location: Eureka cA

6

Wednesday, February 21st 2007, 12:04am

More on ksycoa

It seems like part of this problem also has to do with the way in which ksycoa reads or fails to read its database. For example, when one initially logs in with KDM, it appears that the current directory at the time ksyscoa runs is not consistent with the path in which it expects to find the link to its database information. That could be due to the fact that the PATH as it is expressed in the KDM login routine is not a fixed PATH, but a relative one. That would certainly account for Ksyscoa not being able to find its database. In any case, there IS a problem here that needs to be addressed. It is also interesting that when one logs in as root via KDM, most of these error messages do NOT appear in root's .xsession-errors.

- George

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "George Mitchell" (Feb 21st 2007, 12:13am)

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Rinse

Professional

Posts: 797

7

Wednesday, February 21st 2007, 12:24am

just run kbuildsycoca on my system, and got no errors.
I guess missing mime types could be the failure of the used linux distribution, not kde itself..

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

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toad

Trainee

Posts: 66

Location: capital of beer

8

Saturday, March 10th 2007, 12:07pm

Hi,

I'm on Kubuntu 6.10 and made the fatal mistake of wanting to have a look at what Suse introduced as part of their new Kicker in OpenSuse 10.2. It worked alright, but I didn't like it and uninstalled. Since then I have been unable to manipulate my kmenu - and there is a bunch of stuff which I have installed since, so it is very user-unfriendly.

Checking through the forum I tried to fart around with my /etc/xdg/menus but to no avail. kbuildsycoca also did not work - below a taste of what I get thrown back at me.

Source code

 ingo@dicker:~$ kbuildsycoca
kbuildsycoca running...
Reusing existing ksycoca
Invalid entry (missing '=') at /usr/share/services/screenkast.desktop:4
kio (KService*): WARNING: The desktop entry file screenkast.desktop has Type=Application but is located under "services" instead of "apps"
kio (KService*): WARNING: Invalid Service : screenkast.desktop
kio (KService*): WARNING: Invalid Service : googleearth.desktop
kio (KService*): WARNING: The desktop entry file Games/FreeCol/FreeCol Website.desktop has Type=Link instead of "Application" or "Service"
kio (KService*): WARNING: Invalid Service : Games/FreeCol/FreeCol Website.desktop
Invalid entry (missing '=') at /usr/share/applications/kde/screenkast.desktop:4
kio (KService*): WARNING: Invalid Service : /usr/share/applications/kde/katalog.desktop
kio (KSycoca): ERROR: No database available!

Unfortunately I am at my wits' end and would welcome any help.

running on Debian Etch

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Rinse

Professional

Posts: 797

9

Saturday, March 10th 2007, 2:43pm

kmenu and kicker are part of kdebase, so i guess you should reinstall kdebase to repare the damage that occurred when you removed the kicker version of suse.

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

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toad

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Posts: 66

Location: capital of beer

10

Saturday, March 10th 2007, 5:07pm

Thanks for your quick answer. Turns out kdebase was not installed in the first place. It is installed now but I still cannot make any changes to my kde menu

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

running on Debian Etch

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Rinse

Professional

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Saturday, March 10th 2007, 5:50pm

wich tools are you using to change kmenu?

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

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toad

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Posts: 66

Location: capital of beer

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Saturday, March 10th 2007, 5:56pm

kmenuedit

It is working a treat on my laptop, but I have no idea why my desktop does not like it. Which files does it manipulate? Could I just not delete and have them rebuilt automatically?

running on Debian Etch

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Rinse

Professional

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Saturday, March 10th 2007, 5:59pm

kmenuedit has only affect on your local configuration.
So if you rename/delete ~/.local, ~/.kde.share/applnk and the configuration of kmenu itself in ~/.kde/share/config/kmenueditrc, you should be back at the default menu settings of ubuntu and able to change it.

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

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toad

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Posts: 66

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Saturday, March 10th 2007, 6:13pm

Cool!!!

You did it! I renamed ~/.local/share/applications to ~/../applications.bak and did the same to ~/.kde/share/config/kmenueditrc. This I followed with kbuildsycoca (not sure whether that was necessary), restartet the X-server (ditto) and edited one entry - and it stayed!!!

Fantastic work, thanks. Do you also know the tool which trawls your bins and incorporates every programme it finds

? That would save me some time

running on Debian Etch

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Rinse

Professional

Posts: 797

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Saturday, March 10th 2007, 6:42pm

in the past, there was kappfinder.

kappfinder has a predefined set of applications and looks in your bin directories wich ones you have installed.

Dunno if kappfinder is still shipped with kde.

Help mee om KDE 3.5.5 in het Nederlands te vertalen

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toad

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Posts: 66

Location: capital of beer

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Saturday, March 10th 2007, 6:48pm

kappfinder was the one I was looking for - racking my brain for nothing, looking for update, menu and whathaveyou.

You have been a mine of information. I will pass the knowledge on, as there are a number of us suffering the same fate on the Kubuntu forum.

Best wishes and many thanks.

running on Debian Etch

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