desktop zoom stuck at ca 1.5x, entire desktop moves with mouse pointer.

Help
1

Hello,

I’ve gotten my self into this strange situation where (after login!) the desktop enters a zoomed state, with ca 1.5 magnification. The mouse moves the entire desktop. And I have not found any solution for this yet. I saw quite a few similar issues mentioned in various searches, but none of the proposed solutions have worked for me. E.g. Meta-0 or similar key combos didn’t do anything. I saw that there is a zoom setting in

system settings → workspace behavior →desktop effects → accessibility → zoom

which was at the default value (1.2). Changing this also made no difference, even after a reboot. The machine is running, but hardly usable this way.
Some software/hardware info below.

It is to be noted that up until the login screen succeeds, things are still normal.
So it appears to be some configuration issue.

How this came about, I don’t really know. But I know that before it happened, I had installed
the JetBrains CLions2026.1 IDE for C++ as a trial. And during that trial, I learned that CLion uses a geat number of special key combinations. I followed their tutorial, and a number of these key combos didn’t seem to do what the tutorial expected. Then I exited CLion and
played around with various ESC-bla, Meta-bla and other key combos. During this time
whatever combo I last typed had immediately this zoom effect. Sorry I was unable to recall
what that key combo was :frowning:

SW:
Operating System: Kubuntu 24.04.4
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.12
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.115.0
Qt Version: 5.15.13
Kernel Version: 6.8.0-110-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11

HW:
Beelink SER8
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics
Memory: 27.2 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon 780M Graphics
Manufacturer: AZW
Product Name: SER8
System Version: V10

Keyboard:
Logitech MX Keys S
connected via KVM
(AIMOS HDMI 8 Ports KVM switch)

I am typing this on another Beelink SER8 (8745HS not 8845HS)
via the same keyboard and KVM.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Haimo

2

meta+0

should restore your zoom state to normal.

you might have hit meta++ by accident in the top row of keys.

also under settings > desktop effects you should find the the magnifier effect is selected as the default.

i found that changing that to zoom instead gives a much more “deliberate” experience so you know exactly what mode you activated by accident.

3

That’s what I would have suggested but:

4

it only works with the top row of keys, but not with the num_pad keys…. which can be confusing because normally the are interchangeable even tho they are separate key codes.

perhaps magnify and zoom should respect both sets of keys.

5

Many Thanks, @skyfishgoo!
meta+0 hadn’t worked before, as I said in the original post. However you mentioned the
magnifier effect, it was not selected, so I selected that (and that unselected zoom), and then I unselected the magnifier again - and whoa!! - things returned to normal, as far as I can tell. Great hint!

Although it does leave me with the impression that there might be bug somewhere, as I
would not have guessed from the description of the zoom and magnifier effects that this action would clear the problem.

Many thanks again!!

6

if you can reproduce this behavior, it would be worth filing a bug report at bugs.kde.org

otherwise i would chalk it up to one of thosethings™