Desktop items get unsorted after cold boot on Snow Leopard 10.6.2

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Level 2

154 points

Desktop items get unsorted after cold boot on Snow Leopard 10.6.2

The Desktop items get unsorted after cold boot on Mac OS X 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard).

I have about 25 items (mostly aliases of files or folders) on the Desktop, sorted as vertical rows on left and right side of the screen.

When the issue hits, they all get located as vertical rows on the right side of the screen, unsorted in relation to their custom relative position before the issue.

Any idea? Thanks.

Mactel, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Feb 13, 2010 1:13 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 13, 2010 1:38 AM in response to ApMaX

HI,

In your Finder from the Menu Bar click View/Show View Options. Click the Arrange By pop up menu and select Name.

If that doesn't help, go to ~/Library/Preferences and move this file com.apple.finder.plist
to the Trash and restart your Mac.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

ApMaX Author

Level 2

154 points

Feb 13, 2010 1:51 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks Carolyn. When I said "sorted", I meant "custom sorted" (not necessarily alphabetically sorted). Anyway, the preferences are set just as you indicate on your first paragraph.

I have also trashed com.apple.finder.plist and restarted.

Fingers crossed...

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Answer 3

ApMaX Author

Level 2

154 points

Feb 16, 2010 11:22 PM in response to ApMaX

I got again the 32 items (most of them are aliases) completely unsorted after cold booting (all unsorted in several columns on the right of the Desktop screen). This seems like a Mac OS X 10.6.2 bug to me.

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Answer 4

J.C

Level 4

1,601 points

Feb 17, 2010 12:41 AM in response to ApMaX

Hi ApMaX

According to wikipedia the .DS_Store files on Mac OS X contain the metadata for icon position and view settings. If the file permissions for the Desktop .DS_Store file were incorrect then one could assume that the icon position and view settings aren't being saved.

First let us check the permissions on the .DS_Store file for the Desktop we can do this by running the following command in Terminal (located in the Utilities folder)

ls -ld /Users/<<UserName>>/Desktop/.DS_Store

replacing <<UserName>> with the short name of your user account (name as viewed in the finder sidebar)

On my system I get the following permissions readout
-rw-------@

Further info on .DS_Store files: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.DS_Store

If your permissions differ then we will look at correcting them.

J.C

Message was edited by: J.C

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Answer 5

ApMaX Author

Level 2

154 points

Feb 17, 2010 5:27 AM in response to J.C

Thanks J.C, this is what I get:

-rw-r--r--@

Which is different from the one that you indicate.

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Answer 6

J.C

Level 4

1,601 points

Feb 17, 2010 4:16 PM in response to ApMaX

ApMaX wrote:
Thanks J.C, this is what I get:

-rw-r--r--@

Which is different from the one that you indicate.

These file permissions are fine. Basically it means the User has read and write permissions while the two groups "staff" and "everyone" have read only permissions to the .DS_Store file.

J.C

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Answer 7

ApMaX Author

Level 2

154 points

Feb 17, 2010 4:27 PM in response to J.C

So, the question remains: how to prevent such Desktop items unsorting-resorting? Thanks.

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Answer 8

ApMaX Author

Level 2

154 points

Apr 1, 2010 3:17 AM in response to ApMaX

The same with Mac OS X 10.6.3. Even with a few items (five to 10 files and folders; some of them aliases) on the Desktop, including the hard disk icon. Anyone is having the same issue? Thanks.

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Answer 9

zachi

Level 1

7 points

Apr 7, 2010 1:26 AM in response to ApMaX

i have this problem too, it happened serveral times under 10.6 until 10.6.3 !

*today after the startup / login i see my 100 carefully in clusters positioned (sorted) desktop items suddenly all alphabetically sorted to the right of my desktop.*

the setting is still "Snap to Grid"
my ~/Desktop/.DS_Store is on rw- --- ---, but i dont think that is too important
are we sure, that the desktop item positions are saved in that file ?

*THERE IS A SERIOUS BUG IN 10.6. ABOUT THE DESKTOP ITEMS :(*

*please post here if you experienced the same problems,*
*maybe that will help to make apple work on this.*

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Answer 10

Tokiota

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2010 12:18 AM in response to zachi

Hello Everyone,

I've been trying every single method published since Snow Leopard arrived, to try to fix the icon view option mess...

I'm sick and tired of reading posts and workarounds, it doesn't matter wht you do, THE BUG STILL HERE. so I'm giving up... and will start using column view.

Don't bother fixing, it's a waste of time.

"THERE IS A SERIOUS BUG IN 10.6. ABOUT THE DESKTOP ITEMS"

SNOW LEOPARD'S FINDER IS A PAIN IN THE ***

Best regards,

Raúl Lorenzo

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Answer 11

zachi

Level 1

7 points

Apr 9, 2010 1:18 AM in response to Tokiota

{quote:title=Tokiota wrote:}I'm sick and tired of reading posts and workarounds, it doesn't matter wht you do, THE BUG STILL HERE. so I'm giving up... and will start using column view.{quote}

... there is no column view for the desktop. maybe you're in the wrong topic.
... anyway what i did was logging in as root user and deleting the ~/Desktop/.DS_Store file of my normal account.
... we'll see when it happens again.

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