3

Desktop icons keep rearranging whenever I refresh the desktop or boot the system.
When I arrange the icons by moving them with the mouse and refresh it, it'd be undone and rearranged by name. What's the solution?
I use Ubuntu 16.04.
I think this is a bug. How should I report it?

Milad
  • 237
  • If you right-click on an empty part of the desktop it will open a menu. One of the options is 'Sort Desktop icons by Name'. Is that ticked? Try ticking the other option 'Align Desktop icons'. Does that stop this behaviour? – pHeLiOn Jun 01 '16 at 02:04
  • @pHeLiOn I can't tick it. It's not tickable. – Milad Jun 01 '16 at 03:42
  • I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 with the default Unity desktop & it's not rearranging them on reboot for me. If I select the 'Sort Desktop icons by Name' then it behaves like yours, but I have to select it - it doesn't just do it automatically. Did you do anything like install another desktop (Gnome, XFCE, LXDE etc)? Having multiple desktops installed can sometimes mess with the behaviour. Not sure why it's rearranging your icons automatically but you could try sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop and see if it behaves better after that? – pHeLiOn Jun 01 '16 at 04:31
  • @pHeLiOn I had this problem in Ubuntu 15 too. But it didn't happened all the time. Just randomly when I refreshed the desktop. Until in Ubuntu 16 that was OK at first but eventually it became worse. Now it happens every time that I refresh the desktop. – Milad Jun 01 '16 at 08:00
  • Did you upgrade to 16.04? I'm curious as to whether a fresh installation of 16.04 will have the same behaviour. i.e it's possible that some sort of bug occurred during your 15.04/15.10 installation and then it has carried forward into your upgraded version. It's not really getting to the root of your problem, but in my 16.04 installation the desktop doesn't rearrange them like that, so if you don't get a better answer/suggestion from someone else then it might be worth trying. – pHeLiOn Jun 01 '16 at 16:37
  • @pHeLiOn No, I didn't upgrade. I deleted the 15 version and then installed the 16 version. It's just weird. – Milad Jun 01 '16 at 17:15
  • Okay, Ask Ubuntu is telling me to avoid extended discussions in comments. If no better answer comes, try making a new live USB and reinstalling 16.04 to see if it the problem persists. – pHeLiOn Jun 01 '16 at 17:24

2 Answers2

1

Open a terminal and enter the following commands:

cd ~/.local/share/gvfs-metadata  
sudo chown $USER home  
chmod 755 home

This allows your desktop software to change/save the icon configuration.
(Thanks to the community for correcting spelling and syntax errors.)

Addison
  • 306
UoPTucson
  • 91
  • 5
0

For users who would prefer a GUI (graphical) way of dealing with the OP, this may be useful to you.

Procedure: open Nautilus (Files) as root then change the file called ‘ home ‘ to be USER Read/Writable

Launch Terminal => sudo nautilus
Nautilus ( Files ) > Home > /.local > /share > /gvfs-metadata
Right click on file called " home " select “ Properties “ and change “ Permissions “

Note that the file called " home " likely was set to " root " privilege (it probably had a small lock symbol on the icon) which means that the user (you) could not alter it.

Rationale:

The problem is difficult to reproduce but it seems that Ubuntu 16.04 will lose the ability to ‘remember’ desktop icon placement locations when folders that are located on the desktop have their permissions altered. This seems to happen when the application ' Nautilus ( icon name is “Files” ) ' is simultaneously open in multiple permission states. When Nautilus (Files) is launched using the Unity launcher, the control level is that of a “ user “. When Nautilus (Files) is started from the terminal (CLI) using sudo, it is opened with all the permissions of “ root “. In addition to changing the permission of a folder located on the desktop, Ubuntu will also change the permission of the file that retains the desktop configuration information. Unfortunately this does not happen on a regular basis so it is difficult to confirm this theory.

NewUser
  • 71
  • 1
    I think generally root is both the owner and group of /home. Mine, for example shows drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Dec 15 13:52 home. Perhaps you meant the users directory, which on my system looks like drwxrwxr-x 65 chick chick 4096 Feb 9 16:19 /home/chick – Charles Green Feb 10 '19 at 02:05