Desktop icon problem on Xfce 4.10

[wgerven]

Hello everybody,
I am running xubuntu 12.04 with Xfce 4.10. Lately some strange behaviour developed about my desktop icons. I have them ordered in a specific way on my desktop, but upon reboot, the DE doesn't want to remember this ordering any more. Instead, it just orders them the standard way from up to down, left to right. Regardless of whether I put them again in the right positions on my desktop or not.
Could somebody perhaps point out to me how to solve this problem? Would it help to reinstall my DE? And how would that go about?
Any help is very much appreciated!

Best regards,
Willem.

[Toz]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Have a look at this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1919849) thread and LewisTM's suggestion about using chattr to lock the icon positions.

[wgerven]

Hello Toz, thank you for your reply and welcome.
I will try tonight this suggested solution. I just don't understand where it comes from. At my work I run exactly the same configuration without this problem showing up. However, there is a minor difference: At my work my desktop nicely shows the preview of the pdf's on my desktop, at my laptop at home (which has the stated problem) this is not shown, although both are upgraded by this same way
http://www.webupd8.org/2012/05/install-xfce-410-in-xubuntu-1204.html
to xfce 4.10.
Any thought on where this comes from, whether it is related to my already mentioned problem and how to cure this?
Many thanks!

Willem.

[Toz]

Hello Toz, thank you for your reply and welcome.
I will try tonight this suggested solution. I just don't understand where it comes from. At my work I run exactly the same configuration without this problem showing up. However, there is a minor difference: At my work my desktop nicely shows the preview of the pdf's on my desktop, at my laptop at home (which has the stated problem) this is not shown, although both are upgraded by this same way
http://www.webupd8.org/2012/05/install-xfce-410-in-xubuntu-1204.html
to xfce 4.10.
Any thought on where this comes from, whether it is related to my already mentioned problem and how to cure this?
Many thanks!

Willem.
Is it possible that on your home computer, another process is managing the desktop (i.e. nautilus)?

[wgerven]

Hi Toz, I am not aware of any other process managing my de on my laptop. But I think I already found the (partial) source of my problem.
Together with the strange behaviour of the desktop icons I also noticed that gnome-do started to crash every time it started on login. It loaded but then didn't "get through". The keyboard shortcut didn't start it also anymore, and I had to first select it from the applications menu to start, and only after that I could use gnome-do by the keyboard shortcut. I thought this was an unrelated problem, but in some way it seems both are related. This afternoon I made a purge remove of gnome-do and then installed it again, and now both the problem with gnome-do and my desktop icons is solved!
I only don't know what caused gnome-do to malfunction, and how gnome-do is related to any desktop misbehaviour.. Any insights on this would be very welcome!
Anyway my initial problem is solved now. However, the problem with previewing the pdf's as described in my previous most remains.. (I once by accident installed nautilus, but then I again purge removed it, so this should be no compromise right? Or could this be a source of this problem?)
Thanks for your help!

Best,
Willem.

[Toz]

I'm sorry but I've never used gnome-do, so I can't really comment on it.

Can you post the results of this command:

ps -ef | grep xf
...so I can see what parts of Xfce are running?

[wgerven]

Hi Toz, that is:

$ ps -ef | grep xf
1000 2472 2406 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc -- /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc
1000 2504 2472 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session startxfce4
1000 2507 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session startxfce4
1000 2515 2472 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-session
1000 2517 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/xfconf/xfconfd
1000 2521 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 xfwm4 --replace
1000 2523 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-panel
1000 2527 1 1 08:03 ? 00:00:01 xfdesktop
1000 2625 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-volumed
1000 2628 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 xfsettingsd
1000 2632 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-power-manager
1000 2642 1 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/notifyd/xfce4-notifyd
1000 2654 2523 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/wrapper /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/plugins/libsystray.so 4 14680097 systray Notification Area Area where notification icons appear
1000 2656 2523 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/wrapper /usr/lib/xfce4/panel-plugins/libnotes.so 10 14680098 xfce4-notes-plugin Notes Ideal for your quick notes
1000 2657 2523 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel-plugins/xfce4-indicator-plugin 5 14680099 indicator Indicator Plugin An indicator of something that needs your attention on the desktop
1000 2659 2523 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/wrapper /usr/lib/xfce4/panel-plugins/libdatetime.so 7 14680100 datetime DateTime Date and Time plugin with a simple calendar
1000 2660 2523 0 08:03 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/wrapper /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/panel/plugins/libactions.so 12 14680101 actions Action Buttons Log out, lock or other system actions
1000 3995 1 0 08:04 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/xfce4/exo-1/exo-helper-1 --launch TerminalEmulator
1000 3996 3995 6 08:04 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal
1000 3998 3996 0 08:04 ? 00:00:00 [xfce4-terminal] <defunct>
1000 4055 3999 0 08:04 pts/0 00:00:00 grep --color=auto xfThanks for you help!
Willem

[Toz]

Do you have evince-common installed?

apt-cache policy evince-common

Do you have an evince.thumbnailer file in /usr/share/thumbnailers?

[wgerven]

$ apt-cache policy evince-common
evince-common:
Installed: 3.4.0-0ubuntu1.4
Candidate: 3.4.0-0ubuntu1.4
Version table:
*** 3.4.0-0ubuntu1.4 0
500 http://si.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
3.4.0-0ubuntu1 0
500 http://si.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages



/usr/share/thumbnailers$ ls
evince.thumbnailer gnome-font-viewer.thumbnailer totem.thumbnailer


thanks for the help!

[Toz]

Does deleting the ~/.thumbnails folder help? (You may have to log out and back in again.)

[wgerven]

Hi Toz, no that didn't do the trick. However, one clue might be that at my work the folder ~/.thumbnails contained a subfolder "large" with in there .png's being the previews of the pdf's on my desktop. At my home laptop (with the problem) this folder does not exist.

[dentaku65]

Hi,

since I need to have my icons on the desktop on left side, I just made right click on desktop and choose "Arrange Desktop icons" this is how my desktop looks like... of course I'm pretty sure that "Arrange Desktop icons" works only in case you need the icons on the left...