Desktop icons disappear

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allen.biggins

Desktop icons disappear

Post by allen.biggins »

Hi

I have posted this under Cinnamon and I have just realised that I've put it into the wrong thread. Oops, sorry about that.

Lately (just the past few days) my Linux Mint 17 (Xfce) desktop has been blanking out and I have to log out and log back in again to restore the icons. There's not many (a few Office ones) and the usual volumes, home and rubbish bin but it's a nuisance. I've also noticed that sometimes the desktop blanks and then restores itself which didn't happen before. I have the gufw firewall running and the log shows nothing and I'm using clamav to keep viruses under control.

Pertinent details:-

Linux allenb-P7812 3.13.0-24-generic #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 2 23:30:00 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
I'm using xfce4-settings is the Xfce settings manager front-end
Clamav is up to date and I've scanned my entire home directory and no problems were found
I have run the disk manager (smartctl) and the sata drive passes without problems
I keep my system up to date

I'm not sure if there's anything else that is required. Please advise.

This is really irritating and I would like help please to solve the problem.

Many thanks

Allen
:(
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
richyrich

Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by richyrich »

Allen, does it happen after about 10 minutes of non-use ? Like a screen blanking screensaver ? Does moving the mouse bring the screen back ?
allen.biggins

Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by allen.biggins »

It does happen after a period of time but I'm not sure what that period is. The problem is not quite what a screensaver does because the background always remains as does the task bar at the bottom of the screen. The only things that disappear are the volumes and a few LibreOffice shortcuts that I keep on the dsktop. Moving the mouse does not restore the icons. As I said in my post, I have to log off and back on again to restore the desktop.

I've just changed the screensaver setting to use a specific one (the ant spotlight) to see if that changes anything. I was using the blank screen option before that.

Cheers

Allen
Last edited by allen.biggins on Wed Feb 25, 2015 7:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
richyrich

Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by richyrich »

That gives me a little better idea, something for you to try; Menu > Settings > Window Manager Tweaks program - Compositor tab -> uncheck the "Enable Display Compositing" box.
allen.biggins

Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by allen.biggins »

Done. But it hasn't happened since I changed the screensaver setting. Do you think I should restore the screensaver setting so that we don't have two changes to confuse the issue?

Edit: Actually, what I think I will do is to recheck that box and see what happens so that there is only one change at a time.

Cheers

Allen
richyrich

Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by richyrich »

Good plan, lets hope it's the screensaver settings, as the compositor is a nice thing to be able to use.
allen.biggins

Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by allen.biggins »

Well, you wouldn't read about it.

I changed the screensaver setting to just use the ant with the headlight on and since then the problem hasn't appeared again.

As I recall, I did change the screensaver recently to use the random option. Perhaps there's one of those screensavers that was causing the problem.

Problem seems to have been solved and I'm happy to stick with the ant.

Thank you

Allen
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Re: Desktop icons disappear

Post by MtnDewManiac »

allen.biggins wrote:Well, you wouldn't read about it.

I changed the screensaver setting to just use the ant with the headlight on and since then the problem hasn't appeared again.

As I recall, I did change the screensaver recently to use the random option. Perhaps there's one of those screensavers that was causing the problem.

Problem seems to have been solved and I'm happy to stick with the ant.
IDK if it's standard or if I chose to install them, but I have the xscreensaver-gl-extra package installed, which has 3D (OpenGL) hacks. IIRC, I added that on an older laptop and they didn't work correctly because my graphics driver wasn't installed, wasn't correctly configured, the computer was too old, IDK. You might want to go to {Menu} / Settings / Screensaver and manually preview each screensaver hack to see whether or not it functions properly and then uncheck all the ones that do not (if any) from the list. That way, you'll be able to use the random setting once again - and it'll also give a clue as to whether or not your graphics situation needs sorting out.

Regards,
MDM
Mint 18 Xfce 4.12.

If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
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