18.04 Cannot save Favourites

[davidsrsb]

After a crash, my Desktop favourites seems to have gone read only and returned to default.
If I open Xterm, Gedit etc and select "Add to Favourites" on the icon, nothing sticks and when I close the application the icon vanishes.

[TheFu]

Is this just for 1 account or for all accounts on the system?

[davidsrsb]

There is only one account. Another clue is that all the hidden "dot" file have vanished

[TheFu]

There is only one account. Another clue is that all the hidden "dot" file have vanished

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

ADD ANOTHER ACCOUNT.
LOGIN using that other account.
Do the issues still happen?

This is a way to isolate whether the problem is for 1 user or for the entire system.
Linux is multi-user from the ground up. Take advantage of that fact.

[davidsrsb]

OK, I created a new Administrator level user and it behaves normally.
My own account, "ls -a" shows the hidden files. The file manager show hidden files select does not stick or work.
This means that the problem must be specific to my account.

[TheFu]

OK, I created a new Administrator level user and it behaves normally.
My own account, "ls -a" shows the hidden files. The file manager show hidden files select does not stick or work.
This means that the problem must be specific to my account.

There aren't any "hidden" files on Unix. Not really. You just choose not to show files that begin with a .(dot) by not specifically asking to see them.

I don't use GUIs to manage files. Too slow for me and they don't work on servers. You can try a different file manager. Nautilus, thunar, caja, are some to try. Is this issue with the new account or just the old one?

Why did you make the new account have sudo? Your daily use account probably shouldn't have those rights. When you need it, you can open a shell, su - to the other admin account, do whatever you need, then close, close, and be more secure again.

If the issue is only for 1 account, then there is a corrupt file or DB under that account. If you can figure out which program is supposed to save the "favorites", then you can probably find the file and move it somewhere else, at least temporarily to confirm it is the problem.

It might just be a file permissions problem too. If you use any GUI program with sudo, that can break permissions in ways you didn't intend. It is generally safe to force all file ownership to your userid for anything in your $HOME. The same applies to any userid.

[davidsrsb]

It was a corrupt ~/.config/dconf/user file
Solved by forcing the creation of a new file.
mv ~/.config/dconf/ ~/.config/dconf.bak

[TheFu]

If this is solved, please mark the thread as solved "thread tools" near the top. That helps the community.

[davidsrsb]

Done, I was looking how to change the topic title