Desktop icons changed - need to fix [problem rectified, cause unsolved]

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RadioKaga
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Desktop icons changed - need to fix [problem rectified, cause unsolved]

Post by RadioKaga »

Hi, I installed Font Manager (org.gnome.FontManager) to bring my old font stash on my computer after one big crash few weeks back. However, when I booted the computer the day after installing Font Manager, I noticed the desktop icons had changed. With exception of installing the Font Manager, I have not prompted this on my own. The bar is now mishmash of whites and grays with the regular and weird icons and the log out/shut down icons have totally changed too - they used to be these tasteful mono-colored icons with marks on them, but now they look like they're from Windows 95 or something.

How to revert them? Also I hope my computer isn't compromised if the Font Manager had this much authority to change my icons and stuff.
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vanadium
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by vanadium »

You may accidentality have changed your icon theme as well. First check whether you cannot bring the regular icons back through the appearance settings.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

vanadium wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:31 am You may accidentality have changed your icon theme as well. First check whether you cannot bring the regular icons back through the appearance settings.
Appearance and panel options don't yield anything tangile to fix this. Even changing theme to Mint X or Adawaita doesn't help.

Also I didn't change icon theme or anything - this all happened after I booted Mint after installing Font Manager.

Presently, Mint recognizes this white bar thing as the "default theme" of Mint.

Also TimeShift didn't help.
Last edited by RadioKaga on Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

I tried Graphic Xconf, but I didn't find anything that helped to get rid of the problem. The whites and odd icons clashing with Mint Y theme remain.

I feel Xconf could have something, but what could undo the white bars and wrong icons?
mikeflan
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by mikeflan »

Also TimeShift didn't help.
How far back did you timeshift to? If you have numerous snapshots we would expect Timeshift to fix this problem.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

mikeflan wrote: Sun Apr 18, 2021 10:49 am
Also TimeShift didn't help.
How far back did you timeshift to? If you have numerous snapshots we would expect Timeshift to fix this problem.
Three days before I installed the Font Manager in Saturday 17/4. These those whites and wrong icons are present even when the desktop is opening up after you have typed your password.

The fonts I - intentionally - exported with Font Manager are still present after TimeShift. Yet I can't find the folders containing those fonts.
mikeflan
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by mikeflan »

Three days before I installed the Font Manager in Saturday 17/4.
It's recommended you keep at least one snapshot that is at least 1 month old.
Timeshift restores your whole system minus the home directory and the root directory. We would expect it to include your desktop icons.
Last edited by mikeflan on Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

Well, due to a the afro-mentioned "big crash", I had to reinstall Linux Mint (in 19.3 form and then update to 20.1) in early April of this year - so I haven't exactly got an month old snapshot. That "three days before" was the second oldest after update to 20.1 - a day later in fact.

And again, with exception of Font Manager, I have no clue what could have caused the icon scramble. My Mint 20.1 was absolutely fine before that,
and the recent linux kernel/core update (5.4.0.72) didn't cause anything weird to happen either - unless the Font Manager caused some bug to go off. That or is there something with the fonts themselves that could have caused this?
mikeflan
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by mikeflan »

Don't bite my head off. I'm not too smart on LM 20, but . . . why would you install 19.3 and update to 20.1? Can't you just install 20.1 directly?
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

mikeflan wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:46 pm Don't bite my head off. I'm not too smart on LM 20, but . . . why would you install 19.3 and update to 20.1? Can't you just install 20.1 directly?
Pardon if I came off stand-offish, that was not my intention. Simply put, my OS crashed so bad that I could not download 20.1, so I had to use a USB stick that I made a dedicated 19.3 installation device to reinstall Mint to fix the problem. I figured it would not cause trouble, especially since these problems were not evident when I reinstalled the OS and upgraded to 20.1
Last edited by RadioKaga on Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

The problems persist and I'm bit at my wits end here. I don't know what to do to get rid of the whites and conflicting icons. Do I really need to reinstall Mint all over again?
michael-hi
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by michael-hi »

It looks as if you now have Adwaita or Gnome theme icons showing instead of the normal Mint-Y icons. Maybe this is some weird by-product of installing Gnome Font Manager although it's hard to see why it should happen.

I would check the Appearance settings again and make sure you have Mint-Y selected under both the Style and Icons tabs.

As for the patchy black and white panel, perhaps go into Panel Preferences again and click the Appearance tab. Under Background does it make any difference if you switch between the three options: None - Solid Colour - Background Image?

You could also try turning off "Enable display compositing" on the Compositor tab of Window Manager Tweaks (or if it is off, try turning it on). It's unlikely to be this but worth a try.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

check the Appearance settings again and make sure you have Mint-Y selected under both the Style and Icons tabs.
Both were MInt-Y. I probably should mention that Adwaita is first on both lists.

As for the patchy black and white panel, perhaps go into Panel Preferences again and click the Appearance tab. Under Background does it make any difference if you switch between the three options: None - Solid Colour - Background Image?
Sort of, color of the panel changes but icons are still not Mint-Y ones, also the open programme blocks are distinctly white.

BTW, on Background selection, next to the "None" option, it does say "use system default theme" right? Does that mean my OS maybe recognizes Adwaita as the system default or something?
You could also try turning off "Enable display compositing" on the Compositor tab of Window Manager Tweaks (or if it is off, try turning it on). It's unlikely to be this but worth a try.
Screen blinks only for a moment, nothing changes as far as the panel is concerned.
michael-hi
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by michael-hi »

That's all very strange. Perhaps some stuff is missing from /usr/share/themes or /usr/share/icons on your system.

I looked again at the Panel Preferences on my 19.3 install and also a 20.1 Live USB. In both cases the wording of the first option under Background is "None (use system style)", presumably meaning Mint-Y or whatever else is chosen under the main Appearance settings. If yours actually says "None (use system default theme)" I don't know if that indicates something wrong or whether you just have a different translation of the same wording in another language.

You could check in Synaptic to make sure mint-x-icons mint-y-icons and mint-themes are all properly installed. If anything is wrong try installing or reinstalling these packages.

Maybe also check your home folder to see if anything is overriding the normal themes and icons. In Thunar make sure that "Show Hidden Files" is selected and then see if you have any folder named .icons or .themes within your home folder. Also check there is no file at ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css which might contain css code overriding normal settings. I don't think any of these would exist on a new install.

Apart from that, I don't know. Perhaps a search for xfce panel reset might throw up some further ideas.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

Um... So in Synaptic, when you try to remove programs, say Adwaita icons (or whatever it was), is it normal if it removes almost everything and renders your Linux OS inoperable?

I got this weird idea that if I were to remove this Adwaita thing, it would get rid of the problem, but like I said, then it started removing stuff like lib-gtk and such. After it was through, I could not get updates to work and the way the shut down went was pretty weird. When it shut down, it displayed lines of code/actions (logging out, going to sleep) and sh*t and powered down. Then when I tried to boot again, 20.1 didn't start and I had to reinstall 19.3 for the second time in this month.
michael-hi
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by michael-hi »

That doesn't surprise me. I believe Adwaita is Gnome's default theme and is actually incorporated in GTK. It is probably a fallback theme in Xfce as well, if other themes or icons are missing. It is therefore bound up with the system, so to speak, and if you tried to remove it then all the other stuff might not work properly or might not work at all.

Hope you have better luck now you have reinstalled. :) If you still want to upgrade to LM 20.1, then (assuming you have everything backed up) it may be safest and quickest to download a 20.1 ISO and do a fresh install from a USB stick.
RadioKaga
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Re: Desktop icons changed - need to fix

Post by RadioKaga »

michael-hi wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:42 pm That doesn't surprise me. I believe Adwaita is Gnome's default theme and is actually incorporated in GTK. It is probably a fallback theme in Xfce as well, if other themes or icons are missing. It is therefore bound up with the system, so to speak, and if you tried to remove it then all the other stuff might not work properly or might not work at all.
Figures, silly me. Anyway, I'll let this topic lay dormant for a bit since I "fixed this by OS reinstall" - but I will revive this if the problems come back. This time I used administrator privileges to put OpenType and TrueType fonts in their respective folders in usr/share/fonts - without using Font Manager. Problems haven't risen up yet, but we'll see.

By the way, when I recently tried to install GIMP via Software Manager - GIMP wants to install org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Mint-Y - which is raising bit of alarms for me. I havent installed GIMP yet. What is this Gtk3theme.Mint-Y and could it cause these graphical errors?
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