Files and folders absolutely disappear from viewing on Desktop folder(gnome/KDE).

[James Michael Fultz]

* Luis Maceira <luis_a_maceira at yahoo.com> [2009-10-07 20:19 -0700]:
> I cannot see any older or new file/folder in the Desktop folder,this
> began withGnome but I installed KDE and the same happens.This does not
> happen with thefile browsers in Gnome/KDE or the Terminal(bash),so
> this is a GUI problem.I suspect it began after a crash with Power
> Management and the computer putto sleep(the computer could not return
> back from sleep and I needed to turn it off,curiously this only
> happens with Ubuntu on an external USB HDD-with Ubuntu on the internal
> SSD only a black screen with some warnings appears for 2/3 seconds and
> the computer right after returns normally from sleep-).

Nautilus is responsible for displaying desktop icons within GNOME.  It
sounds like something corrupted your saved session state so that
Nautilus not automatically started.  Your mention of a crash would
support that.

KDE is different as of version 4, it does not display icons on the
desktop without the Desktop Folder Plasmoid widget.

> Note: I can temporalily(one session) see again the files and folders
> in Desktop folder,with a trick(desktop switch to netbook mode,and then
> back to classicmode)but if I turn the computer off in the next session
> the problem remains the same.Perhaps I will fill a bug report if no
> one knows how to solve the problem.  Dell Mini9 netbook,Ubuntu UNR
> 9.04 on an internal SSD drive and on an external HDD.

You could try switching modes as you describe, then before
logout/shutdown do the following.

Menu: System > Preferences > Startup Applications

Options tab in the Startup Applications Preferences dialog

Check the box beside "Automatically remember running applications when
logging out"

Then logout/shutdown/reboot.

If that resolves your problem, you may want to uncheck the box for
"Automatically remember..." again so that your session doesn't become
altered at future logouts.

You could also try moving '.config/autostart' to another location.  That
may reset you GNOME to a default session, but I am not certain about
that.  It should be safe to try, however.