14.04 Kate Editor Plugins Not Showing – Fix Configuration Permissions

I got a strange problem with kate editor.

For some reason, whenever I runs kate in normal mode (without sudo) then all kate plugins disappear. I could not see any Projects/FileSystemBrowser/Documents that I normally use.

But when I run kate with sudo then those plugins show up, albeit the look-and-feel looks odd (with all the borders, etc.).

I tried to uninstall and reinstall kate altogether, but the problem still persists. It looks like I have two different kate installed, the look-and-feel looks different as well when running with/without sudo.

Oh and before I can just type kate <document_name> and it would show up nicely in a new tab. Now it doesn't work that way, opening a whole new windows instead (not new tab).

Any suggestion to fix this issue would be appreciated – thanks.

Edit 1:
I have two Ubuntu 14.04 machines, and this happens with just one machine. Ironically it happens with the machine that I use most of the time (not with the secondary machine). Could it be the kate config is different somehow, or if the config is corrupted?

Edit 2:
I can't recall exactly when the problem happens. But certainly sometimes after upgrading Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04. But again, I upgraded both of my machines in almost the same way.

Edit 3:

On the machine that kate works ok:

$ ll ~/.kde/share/config
total 160
drwxrwxr-x 2 test test  4096 Aug  3 17:51 ./
drwxrwxr-x 5 test test  4096 Mar  4  2014 ../
-rw------- 1 root root    66 Dec  5  2014 drkonqirc
-rw------- 1 test test   174 Mar 19 10:47 katepartpluginsrc
-rw------- 1 test test  9075 Aug  3 17:51 katerc
-rw------- 1 test test    35 Feb 12 16:20 kateschemarc
-rw------- 1 test test  3877 Feb 12 16:18 katescriptingrc
-rw------- 1 test test 66067 Jun 16 09:38 katesyntaxhighlightingrc
-rw------- 1 test test   901 Dec  5  2014 kconf_updaterc
-rw------- 1 test test   104 Dec  5  2014 kcookiejarrc
-rw------- 1 test test   328 Jun 16 09:38 kdebugrc
-rw------- 1 test test    39 Mar  4  2014 kdedrc
-rw------- 1 test test   473 Mar  4  2014 kdeglobals
-rw------- 1 test test    69 Mar  4  2014 kio_httprc
-rw------- 1 test test    92 Mar  4  2014 kioslaverc
-rw------- 1 test test    35 Mar  4  2014 knfsshare
-rw------- 1 test test   402 Mar  4  2014 komparerc
-rw------- 1 test test   122 Jun 16 09:38 ktimezonedrc
-rw------- 1 test test    88 Dec  5  2014 kuriikwsfilterrc
-rw------- 1 root root    48 Dec  5  2014 kwalletrc
-rw------- 1 test test    85 Mar  4  2014 nepomukserverrc
-rw------- 1 test test    22 Mar  4  2014 phonondevicesrc

On the machine that kate doesn't work ok (with the described strange behaviours):

$ ll ~/.kde/share/config
total 188
drwxrwxrwx 3 test test  4096 Aug  4 08:37 ./
drwxrwxrwx 5 test test  4096 Feb 12 09:36 ../
drwxrwxrwx 2 test test  4096 May 22 10:22 colors/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test   151 Jul 30 11:34 drkonqirc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test   259 Apr 28 15:05 katepartpluginsrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test  2098 Feb 12 09:36 katepartscriptrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test 24686 Aug  4 08:37 katerc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    96 May 21 16:43 kateschemarc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test  3877 Apr 28 09:38 katescriptingrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test 66416 Jul 28 13:38 katesyntaxhighlightingrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test  1148 Jul 31 13:28 kconf_updaterc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test   104 Apr 28 09:38 kcookiejarrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test   442 Jul 30 11:34 kdebugrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    39 Feb 12 09:36 kdedrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test   574 Jul 30 17:30 kdeglobals*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    88 Jul 24 16:29 kglobalshortcutsrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    69 Feb 12 09:36 kio_httprc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    92 Feb 12 09:36 kioslaverc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    35 Mar 23 16:04 knfsshare*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root    56 Jul 24 16:29 konsolerc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test   122 Mar 23 16:04 ktimezonedrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    88 Apr 28 09:38 kuriikwsfilterrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    48 Apr 28 09:38 kwalletrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    85 Feb 12 09:36 nepomukserverrc*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 test test    22 Feb 12 09:36 phonondevicesrc*

Edit 4: Quick fix

Following Lekensteyn's hints, I compared these two config folders. They in fact look very different. As a first step, I backed up the config folder in the machine that doesn't work, then copy the one from the other machine over. And now kate seems to work ok. I'm monitoring it now.

Obviously this doesn't look like a proper fix yet, but at least it appears working for now.

What still baffles me is why that config folder has all those wrong permissions, even after a fresh install. Anyway that should not be in the scope of this Q – as long as kate works stably with all those plugins – that's all I need.