[SOLVED] Home contents on desktop problem

[Jeffex]

Hi there,
Last night I downloaded a torrent of Marx Brothers movies, and during the night I awoke, saw the torrent was completed, and shut down my pc.
This morning when I booted up, the contents of my /home directory (directories and three videos) were on my desktop.
I opened my /home directory and the content was still in there, these are doubles. When I try to move the desktop ones to the Trash the ones in the home directory are also moved there. They appear to be linked.
Also, several files that were on my desktop are gone.
I used Timeshift and restored the system to the day before, that didn't work, then I restored it to two days prior, still no change.

Can someone shed some light on this problem and help me resolve this please?
I run Linux Mint 19 Tara, Cinnamon 3.8.9, kernal 4.15.0-36.

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System:    Host: infinity Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic x86_64 bits: 64
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.9  Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P8Z77-V v: Rev 1.xx serial: N/A
           BIOS: American Megatrends v: 2003 date: 05/09/2013
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i5-3570K (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           clock speeds: max: 4100 MHz 1: 1757 MHz 2: 2023 MHz 3: 1634 MHz 4: 1681 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GK104 [GeForce GTX 670]
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: nvidia (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
           Resolution: 2560x1440@59.95hz
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GTX 670/PCIe/SSE2 version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.48
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Def. Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel
           Card-2 NVIDIA GK104 HDMI Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-36-generic
Network:   Card: Intel 82579V Gigabit Network Connection driver: e1000e
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 60:a4:4c:ae:6b:cf
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 5757.2GB (27.8% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD15EADS size: 1500.3GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD10EZEX size: 1000.2GB
           ID-3: /dev/sdc model: WDC_WD1001FALS size: 1000.2GB
           ID-4: /dev/sdd model: Samsung_SSD_840 size: 256.1GB
           ID-5: /dev/sde model: WDC_WD2002FAEX size: 2000.4GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 19G used: 14G (77%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdd1
           ID-2: /home size: 199G used: 121G (65%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdd3
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 2.10GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdd2
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 24.0C mobo: 29.0C gpu: 29C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0 fan-1: 0 fan-2: 630 fan-3: 712 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0
Info:      Processes: 219 Uptime: 16 min Memory: 2074.9/15983.5MB
           Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.56

[gm10]

In a terminal, run

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dconf reset /org/nemo/preferences/desktop-is-home-dir

If that does not fix it, then

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xed ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

and replace the contents with this:

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XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/Desktop"
XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/Downloads"
XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/Templates"
XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/Public"
XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"
XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/Videos"

Save and exit, followed by:

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xdg-user-dirs-update
xdg-user-dirs-gtk-update

and you should be good.

[Jeffex]

Thank you gm10, the first code worked!
I guess I have lost the files that were on my desktop before this happened.
Do you know what may have caused this in the first place?

[gm10]

Do you know what may have caused this in the first place?

Maybe you set that option accidentally. It wouldn't cause data-loss by the way, you possibly deleted some files while you were confused about whether they were duplicates.

[Jeffex]

Ok, thanks mate.