desktop icons disappear on Ubuntu 15.04 when clicking Open Dropbox folder

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I have the exact same issue. I can restore the icons by opening Dconf and going to org - gnome - desktop - background and unticking and ticking show-desktop-icons.

Huh, as far as I know, there's nothing really particularly special about the Dropbox folder. Is this a nautilus bug instead? Does it happen with any other folders?

It is clearly not obvious that it should be connected to dropbox. In fact it took me a while to find where the connection was. It is however connected to dropbox. I have solved the problem personally in that I now never ask to open a dropbox window. Instead I right click on File and choose Open a New Window. That works properly. Right click on the dropbox icon -> Open Dropbox folder will kill my desktop icons.
This didn't used to happen before 15.04.

On Sat, Jun 06, 2015 at 09:32:07AM -0000, Ilan Tal wrote:
> It is clearly not obvious that it should be connected to dropbox. In fact it
> took me a while to find where the connection was. It is however connected to
> dropbox. I have solved the problem personally in that I now never ask to open
> a dropbox window. Instead I right click on File and choose Open a New Window.
> That works properly. Right click on the dropbox icon -> Open Dropbox folder
> will kill my desktop icons. This didn't used to happen before 15.04.

Hmm, it doesn't seem to do this for me. I'm running 15.04 too.

Could you try opening a terminal, and running this command:
nautilus $HOME/Dropbox

Then check if the the bug occurs.

--
Kind regards,
Loong Jin

The dropbox command is located somewhere else:

ilan@ilan-main:~$ $HOME/Dropbox
bash: /home/ilan/Dropbox: Is a directory
ilan@ilan-main:~$

I just tried again right click on the dropbox icon on the taskbar -> Open Dropbox Folder and again it erased my desktop icons. One of the icons is to fire up Netbeans if that helps. Another one is to fire up Virtual box to start up XP. My guess is that it isn't important what exactly the icons are.

Now I will log out and back in to get my icons back. I can still clearly see them in $Home/Desktop, so the bug is alive and well.

The command is "nautilus $HOME/Dropbox", not "$HOME/Dropbox".

And nevermind, I've figured it out. Dropbox launches nautilus using "nautilus --no-desktop $HOME/Dropbox", which, in Ubuntu 15.04, turns off the desktop icon rendering. I think this is solely a bug in nautilus, because as far as I know, "--no-desktop" was supposed to just tell nautilus not to render the desktop *only* while launching.

I have the exact same problem.

@ Chow Loong Jin: could you please let us know how to fix this, if possible? thanks a lot.

Congratulations. It looks like you are 99% of the road the fix the bug.

Here's a debdiff against 1:3.14.2-0ubuntu10 to fix this bug.

Crap, wrongly targeted vivid. Meant to target wily.

Here's the fixed patch.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

ACK on the wily debdiff, uploaded. Thanks!

This bug was fixed in the package nautilus - 1:3.14.2-0ubuntu10

---------------
nautilus (1:3.14.2-0ubuntu10) wily; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/ignore-no-desktop-if-not-first-launch.patch:
    - Don't shut off the desktop when external application calls nautilus
      --no-desktop on a running GNOME desktop. (LP: #1453655)

 -- Chow Loong Jin <email address hidden> Thu, 18 Jun 2015 18:14:50 +0800

Debdiff for vivid.

Uploaded vivid SRU with sanitized version number, thanks! Unsubscribing sponsors now.

Hello Ilan, or anyone else affected,

Accepted nautilus into vivid-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/1:3.14.2-0ubuntu9.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I have just installed 15.04 and experienced the same issue that Ilan reported. Upon reading this thread, I upgraded Nautilus to the proposed version (1:3.14.2-0ubuntu9.1), and can confirm that the problem is gone.

So far, no other problems detected.

Thanks for the support.

-Nico

This bug was fixed in the package nautilus - 1:3.14.2-0ubuntu9.1

---------------
nautilus (1:3.14.2-0ubuntu9.1) vivid; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/ignore-no-desktop-if-not-first-launch.patch:
    - Don't shut off the desktop when external application calls nautilus
      --no-desktop on a running GNOME desktop. (LP: #1453655)

 -- Chow Loong Jin <email address hidden> Wed, 24 Jun 2015 11:50:03 +0800

The verification of the Stable Release Update for nautilus has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

I have very recently made a clean install of 16.04LTS with what appears to be the exact same issue and also seems related to Dropbox. Open Dropbox folder and desktop icons disappear. They are still in the System generated Desktop folder in Home but if I attempt to move them to the desktop the action will not be allowed. The only solution is as stated before, to log out then back in.

Just wondering if the fix in 15.0 has been migrated to 16.04 for fixes and updates? I used Synaptic to see if the 15.0 fix was there under Pre-Release for Nautilus but I don't see anything that looks correct.

Thanks.

Hi Matt,
I just checked on my 16.04LTS and I have no problem. For me at least, it is fixed.

Hello,
I'm here to report that this bug still appears for me on a recent clean install of Ubuntu 16.10. It was also present, for me, in a previous installation of Ubuntu 16.04. Whenever I open the dropbox folder from the dropbox indicator, all the icons on the desktop disappear.
I have nautilus version 1:3.20.3-1ubuntu3.1.

Hi, I still have this problem on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS, with nautilus 1:3.20.3-1ubuntu2~ubuntu16.04.1 installed.

I have the same problem in 16.10

I have the same problem in 17.04

Same issue in Ubuntu 17.04 (Unity)

Same issue in Ubuntu 16.10

Me too on Ubuntu 17.04

same problem with Ubuntu 17.04 (Zesty) :
I had two installs : one upgrade from Ubuntu 16.04 and one clean install (next to existing windows 10 partition). The problem was not present with Ubuntu 16.04.
In both installations the problem occurs : desktop icons disappear when dropbox folder is opened from system tray

Same issue in 17.04 (a clean install). Do not have this problem with the 16.04 LTS release I have running on another computer.

Would greatly appreciate a fix for this, have been living with it now for 6 months and, although no data is lost, it is REALLY annoying and gives an impression of "flakiness". Only affects the desktop if I access the dropbox folders from the icon in the system tray, if I go there through the file manager all works ok.