Xfce panel works, desktop doesn't

[titus]

This is a new one on me.
I stepped out of the room for a few minutes and when I returned my desktop background had changed, gone was my custom desktop image and in place was the default Linux Mint Debian image. The desktop icons had changed too and I'd grown a wastebasket which I don't normally have on the desktop.
The desktop looks a bit like Gnome (I think, I've never willingly used Gnome) but I still have my Xfce4 panel and it works normally. I no longer get the "right click" applications menu on the desktop, just a small menu with seven items on it.
When I click on the applications menu button in the panel everything appears as normal and according to the "desktop settings" my desktop is still as it was. It's almost as if another window manager was running and overriding the Xfce one.
I checked that xfwm4 was running on start up and eventually removed .config/xfwm4 in order to start again. I got the default panel but the desktop remains the same.
Any assistance will, as usual, be gratefully acknowledged

[drdavidk]

Sounds like Nautilus redrew your desktop. Run gconf-editor, open apps>nautilus>preferences and unclick show desktop. Should go away instantly

[jjaythomas]

sounds like nautilus strikes again (why in XFCE? ) Never happened to me yet thou

But if not...

See if under dispay you have two monitors. On some laptops the internal display will overwrite the external display.
I have a laptop (use as desktop) with a external (VGA output to LCD TV) that won't show correctlly unless internal monitor disabled in display settings.
I believe using Xinerama (spelling?) let both monitors display different resolutions/size/ect. independent.

Might be problem if not Nautilus...
JJay

[Oscar799]

Moved here by moderator

[pete2bec2]

I have exactly (I mean exactly!) the same problem. Has anyone figured this out? I do not have two monitors configured anywhere. And I went to Nautilus but I didn't have a setting for "show desktop", as in below:

Run gconf-editor, open apps>nautilus>preferences and unclick show desktop. Should go away instantly

I did see this in xsession-errors:
xfdesktop[1862]: starting up
xfce4-settings-helper: Another instance is already running. Leaving...

Don't know if it is related. Only recently converted to Linux.

It is really bothering me. I just tried LMDE this weekend for the first time and I love it, but this is souring my taste. Please help...

PROBLEM:
I stepped out of the room for a few minutes and when I returned my desktop background had changed, gone was my custom desktop image and in place was the default Linux Mint Debian image. The desktop icons had changed too and I'd grown a wastebasket which I don't normally have on the desktop.
The desktop looks a bit like Gnome (I think, I've never willingly used Gnome) but I still have my Xfce4 panel and it works normally. I no longer get the "right click" applications menu on the desktop, just a small menu with seven items on it.
When I click on the applications menu button in the panel everything appears as normal and according to the "desktop settings" my desktop is still as it was. It's almost as if another window manager was running and overriding the Xfce one.

[toothandnail]

Oh dear. I was hoping someone would have an answer to this one.

I installed the 201204 LMDE XFCE version earlier today. Got most things set up the way I wanted, and was enjoying it. I tired an earlier version some months ago, but got fed up with the problems, so I've been running SalineOS since.

The new version seems pretty good. However....

Early this afternoon, I made the mistake of opening the trash folder from Thunar. At which point, my selected background reverted to the original Mint wallpaper, the right-click menu lost all applications (not to mention losing most of the functions that remained (desktop settings wouldn't open, neither would properties). I was able to use the menu from the panel, and attempted to find out what had happened.

I couldn't change the wallpaper from the settings manager, and all the settings looked as though they were untouched. After a good deal of fiddling, I reinstalled, and now have things back the way I want them. Hope it lasts, or that someone comes up with a way of fixing the problem if it does recur, because I do like the way it works once its been set up the way I want it. But I'll not be installing again if it pulls the same trick again.

One other oddity, which is not related to the desktop problem - I've got it installed on a Lenovo T61 laptop. The thinkpad-acpi module is loaded and seems to be functional. Except for one thing - Conky seems unable to retrieve data from the acpi layer - instead of having a CPU temprature reading, Conky is displaying ${ibm_temps}C. Very odd, since its not displaying the numeric sensor number, which is part of the template. Even more odd is that I'm running a backport of the same kernel under SalineOS, and the thinkpad_acpi works as it should under Saline.

Any ideas to solve the desktop problem would be very useful....

Paul.

[zerozero]

uninstall nautilus, problem solved!

[toothandnail]

uninstall nautilus, problem solved!

Thanks. I'll remove it. I'm not sure why its installed at all - does Brasero use it, or is there some other reason for it?

Paul.

[zerozero]

if your only concern is brasero, you have xfburn (xfce native and reported to have better results than brasero)

this might be interesting http://wiki.xfce.org/recommendedapps

[toothandnail]

if your only concern is brasero, you have xfburn (xfce native and reported to have better results than brasero)

this might be interesting http://wiki.xfce.org/recommendedapps

Sorry to be slow - busy week...

Its not so much that I'm worried about brasero, just that looking through things, the only thing I could see related to nautilus was a brasero-nautilus.desktop in /usr/share/applications, and I was wondering why nautilus was installed at all.

I've used xfburn in the past (though quite a while ago), and prefer brasero - I've had more reliable results from it.

Thanks for the advice.

Paul.

[zerozero]

from the brasero description

CD/DVD burning application for GNOME

Brasero is a simple application to burn, copy and erase CD and DVD
media: audio, video or data. It features among other things:
* On-the-fly burning
* Multisession support
* On-the-fly conversion of music playlists in all formats supported by
GStreamer

This package contains the main binary, the burning plugins and the
nautilus extension.

The following packages, if installed, will provide Brasero with added
functionality:
* cdrdao to burn combined data/audio CDs and for byte-to-byte copy
* GStreamer backends to support more audio formats
* vcdimager to create VCDs or SVCDs
* libdvdcss2 to copy encrypted DVDs