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Although the PC still runs well and the Desktop folder is there and has everything in it, the icons that were on the actual visible desktop have disappeared. I realized that some of the environments don't have desktop icons but this wasn't one of them unless it somehow changed itself between boots. They were there, then after a reboot they were all gone. This post talks about a similar but not identical issue and its ideas do not seem to apply to mine. Any ideas?

DonP
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    Looks like the Gnome desktop icon extension got removed. Could you check whether the solution 1 works? https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/re-enable-desktop-icons-in-gnome-shell/ If it does, I will present it as an answer. – Archisman Panigrahi Jun 30 '20 at 03:09
  • Thank you and seems that’s what happened. I’m away now but once I return I’ll see if it fixes the problem, then I’ll report back. – DonP Jul 01 '20 at 05:52
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    Checkout the answer if it helps https://askubuntu.com/questions/1237042/desktop-files-not-launching-from-desktop-in-ubuntu-20-04-lts/1256301#answer-1256301 – Ashish Jul 04 '20 at 14:33
  • This PC is apparently running xfce so none of the above helped and I found the answer here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/451847/desktop-icons-not-showing-up-in-xubuntu-and-i-cant-right-click-on-the-desktop . I don't recall ever installing a desktop other than Gnome but apparently I did! – DonP Jul 22 '20 at 07:32

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I had the same issue, too. Suddenly all my icons on the desktop were gone. After a long search I found that for me the reason was a change in the file: ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Schreibtisch"
#XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Vorlagen"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Öffentlich"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Dokumente"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Musik"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Bilder"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"

In the line #XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/" the word Schreibtisch (Desktop in German) was missing.

Hope that this will help someone.

Helmut Dr. Fender
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