[plasmashell] [Bug 524244] New: plasma-apply-desktoptheme reports success while AutomaticLookAndFeel silently overrides it

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=524244

            Bug ID: 524244
           Summary: plasma-apply-desktoptheme reports success while
                    AutomaticLookAndFeel silently overrides it
    Classification: Plasma
           Product: plasmashell
      Version First 6.6.6
       Reported In:
          Platform: Kubuntu
                OS: Linux
            Status: REPORTED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
          Assignee: [email protected]
          Reporter: [email protected]
                CC: [email protected]
  Target Milestone: 1.0

Product: plasmashell · Component: general · Severity: normal

general is where the other plasma-apply-* reports live (bugs 472792, 511377,
507681). There is no dedicated component for these tools.

SUMMARY

On systems shipping AutomaticLookAndFeel=true in kdeglobals — Kubuntu among
them — the look-and-feel package re-asserts its own desktop theme after
plasma-apply-desktoptheme runs. The command exits 0, prints a success message,
and plasmarc records the requested theme, but Plasma continues rendering the
previous one. Nothing anywhere reports the conflict.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. On a system with AutomaticLookAndFeel=true in ~/.config/kdeglobals (default
on Kubuntu), create or install a custom desktop theme.
2. plasma-apply-desktoptheme MyCustomTheme
3. Observe the exit status and the message.
4. kreadconfig6 --file plasmarc --group Theme --key name
5. Look at the actual desktop.

OBSERVED RESULT

Exit status 0, success reported, plasmarc shows MyCustomTheme, and the desktop
renders the look-and-feel package's theme. The only observable signal that the
requested theme was discarded is the pixmap cache mtimes:

$ ls -la --time-style=+%H:%M:%S ~/.cache/plasma_theme_*.kcache
... 08:38:36 plasma_theme_MyCustomTheme.kcache      # applied here
... 08:40:15 plasma_theme_kubuntu-light.kcache      # still being used

EXPECTED RESULT

One of:

- the command applies the theme and it sticks; or
- the command warns that AutomaticLookAndFeel is enabled and the requested
theme will be overridden by the active look-and-feel package, and exits
non-zero.

A CLI tool whose entire job is to apply a setting should not report success
when a known, detectable configuration guarantees the setting will be
discarded.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The workaround is to avoid introducing a new theme id at all: copy the active
theme into ~/.local/share/plasma/desktoptheme/ under its original name (the
user data dir shadows /usr/share) and patch the copy. This has to be done for
both the light and dark variants, or the styling disappears when the day/night
schedule flips.

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