This problem disappeared as mysteriously as it arose. There are two possible reasons for this as far as I can see:
1. A recent update/upgrade using
sudo apt-get update &&sudo apt-get upgrade
flushed the problem out somehow.
2. The encoding was not set to default on konsole. This was noticeable when man pages had funny symbols instead of a hyphen. When the encoding was set back to default, the hyphen issue went away. I cannot be sure if the administrator button problem disappeared simultaneously.
This problem disappeared as mysteriously as it arose. There are two possible reasons for this as far as I can see:
1. A recent update/upgrade using
sudo apt-get update &&sudo apt-get upgrade
flushed the problem out somehow.
2. The encoding was not set to default on konsole. This was noticeable when man pages had funny symbols instead of a hyphen. When the encoding was set back to default, the hyphen issue went away. I cannot be sure if the administrator button problem disappeared simultaneously.
In any case, the administrator button works now.