File Drawer(Nautilus) Does Not Display Alphabetically in 14.04 Gnome Metacity

[mc4man]

When you are in list view -
Go Cog icon > Preferences > Views > Arrange by: set to Name
Close that menu, then -
View menu > Reset View to Defaults

If that doesn't set list view back to Name/alpha .. then do the deal about deleting user file, ect.
(logging in to a tty is simple, type username, press enter on keyboard, type in password, press enter on key.., type in sudo reboot press enter..

[CantankRus]

If you arrange files/folders by clicking on "modified" in list view then that folder will
arrange as "modified" in the list view no matter the setting in preferences.
The preference setting doesn't override what you manually change to in a given folder for each view.
Icon view and list view can also have different arrange settings for the same folder.

Open your home folder in list view, click on "Name" in the top bar to arrange by name.
Close.

Reset your preference in dconf via terminal (default is by name)...

gsettings reset org.gnome.nautilus.preferences default-sort-order

Open Files in list view and home should be organized by "name" as indicated by the small triangle.

[mark bower]

Solved. When the home folders are displayed in list mode, clicking on the column heading titled NAME toggles the order to alphabetical - that simple. (Toggling again, and the list order makes no sense that I can observe, and not tied to modification dates, but no matter for my needs.) I never would have thought to click on the column heading to make a change, driven instead to use the drop down menus via the icons. This method was not intuitive for me.

@pc4man. Thank you for your suggestion on how to solve the problem by a digging a bit deeper, I'm sure it would have worked - I did play with going to the virtual screens and logging back in - yes, easy to do.

@CantankRus. Thank you. You put me onto the solution I needed with

Open your home folder in list view, click on "Name" in the top bar to arrange by name.

Challenging, but life is good with Ubuntu again.