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User profile for user: Wellenbrett
Wellenbrett Author
User level: Level 1
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Desktop icons get mixed up after reboot

The file and folder icons on my desktop get mixed up after reboot. The problem does not appear always but quite often. It cost me much time to arrange the desktop icons back to their original state. The problem aready exists since MacOSX 10.6.2 (or previously).

MacMini 2.26 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 23, 2010 3:22 PM

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30 replies
User profile for user: KXsig
KXsig
User level: Level 2
310 points

Aug 23, 2010 4:09 PM in response to Wellenbrett

Hi W,

That is really strange. Do you have some application which can perform any modifying interaction with Desktop?

A good practice is to keep on Desktop only temporary items. Every time that you hide, minimize or close any opened Window and your Desktop gets to be shown, all items within have their icons visualization processed again, this increases the CPU and Memory usage.

Our Snow Leopard have great solutions with Stacks in Dock, give it a try, you can create a Folder in Desktop and drag it to Dock, manage Stack settings for it and get a quick and handy access to items.

Good luck.

Hey! And feel welcome here! 🙂

Message was edited by: KXsig
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User profile for user: Wellenbrett
Wellenbrett Author
User level: Level 1
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Aug 24, 2010 1:38 AM in response to KXsig

Hello KXsig,
thank you for your quick response and welcome greetings!
Yes, I use an application which interacts with the desktop: Safari for example when I use Drag&Drop to copy a picture from Safari to my Desktop. With MacOSX 10.4.11/Safari and MacOSX 10.5/Safari this problem never appeared. My girl friend who uses the same system (MacOSX 10.6.4) on the same Mac has the same problem!
I like the Stacks in the Dock but they are no substitute for the Desktop. I also do not want to have to adjust my behavior to my computer to get it work properly.
In my experience, the probability that the symbols are mixed up after a restart, is bigger, especially if there are already a number of icons on the right bottom of the Desktop. Perhaps the programmers of the new Finder decided to "clean up" the icons in this case. Older versions of the Finder started to stack the symbols about one another in this case. I prefer this behavior. In my opinion it is a bug. Is there a workaround ? In a German forum I have read that it helped to do something with the file ~/Desktop/.DS_Store. However, I do not know any more what this was.
Any ideas ?
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User profile for user: KXsig
KXsig
User level: Level 2
310 points

Aug 24, 2010 3:18 PM in response to Wellenbrett

Hi W,

Your goal is more than fair. You both are having the same abnormal behavior, this do not happens in my 10.6.4 OS build.

This hint you found could lead us to a solution. The .DS_Store files are present in every folder you previously visited using Finder, this Desktop Services Store file holds a number of informations about the folder attributes, like present items, icons positions, customized visualization settings and others.

You can remove this file and it will be recreated right away. If your Finder is not modified to show hidden files you can use Terminal to remove it with the command line "rm /Users/YourUerName/Desktop/.DS_Store".

Would be a good procedure you perform a boot in Safe Mode, remove item, Repair Permissions on startup volume and restart machine. To Safe Mode you hold the left SHIFT key right after Power button till progress indicator shows up.

Check out if some other folder is not holding the Icon view settings too.

Bring back results here.

Good luck.
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User profile for user: Wellenbrett
Wellenbrett Author
User level: Level 1
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Sep 2, 2010 10:21 AM in response to KXsig

Hello KXsig,
thank you again for your quick response!
In the meantime I followed your hint and removed the .DS_Store file in the manner you described it. For about one week the symbols kept on there place. But since yesterday they get mixed up again after reboot.
I prepared another folder with a special Icon view arrangement and will check if the arrangement changes like in the desktop folder. Do you think ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist could be the reason for the problems? The file has about 45 KB.
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User profile for user: Wellenbrett
Wellenbrett Author
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 5, 2010 6:09 AM in response to KXsig

Hello XSig,
I have pursued further "research". Mounting and unmounting of external drives (Firewire 800 and probably USB) seems to be part of the problem:
The following procedure should enable you to reproduce the bug:
Source state: Reboot and Login; a lot of icons on the right bottom of the Desktop; Enable free arrangement of desktop icons in the Finder options.

1) Go to any internet page with Safari
2) Switch on external firewire 800 drive and wait till it is mounted.
3) In Safari drag a piece of text to any place on the desktop.
4) In the Finder drag (copy) the resulting Text-Clip to the external drive. Put the original Text-Clip to the trash and delete the trash.
5) Unmount the external drive in the Finder and switch it off afterwards.
6) Reboot and Login: the desktop icons should be mixed up now.
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User profile for user: Ties-Malte
Ties-Malte
User level: Level 1
50 points

Sep 6, 2010 6:07 AM in response to Wellenbrett

Wellenbrett wrote:
The file and folder icons on my desktop get mixed up after reboot. The problem does not appear always but quite often. It cost me much time to arrange the desktop icons back to their original state. The problem aready exists since MacOSX 10.6.2 (or previously).


Same problem here! Happens to appear from time to time, but can’t see any crucial points that leads to this behavior.

Wellenbrett wrote:
Mounting and unmounting of external drives (Firewire 800 and probably USB) seems to be part of the problem.


I’ve got some FiWi 800 divices, but don’t use them really often. Maybe the mounting/unmounting of time capsule does play any role?
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User profile for user: Matsd
Matsd
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 8, 2010 5:25 PM in response to Wellenbrett

I have a similar problem when I reboot. All my icons gather in the right hand corner of the desktop more or less every time i reboot. I also lose settings for specific finder windows. They all turn to default at reboot.

To my knowledge I do not have any special applications that interfere with the finder desktop.
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User profile for user: Berillo
Berillo
User level: Level 1
0 points

Sep 17, 2010 2:24 PM in response to Wellenbrett

Same problem here. It happened with my older Power PC G3 running Panther, and then Tiger, and now with my iMac, both with Leopard and now with Snow Leo.
I've asked lots of friends, some very knowleadgeable of Mac OSes, and no one could ever give me an answer.
When I run MainMenu or Spring Cleaning, after they complete the tasks, the desktop icons are mixed, some piled upon the HD icon, the others arranged in coluns with no evident criteria.
But it also happens spontaneously, not always, but when it happens it's a drag.
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User profile for user: KXsig
KXsig
User level: Level 2
310 points

Sep 17, 2010 4:07 PM in response to Berillo

Hi there,

I tested that step by step W posted and desktop icons are in the right same place as before, I could not reproduce the problem and I did not bumped into displaced icons since last post here, in spite of the fact that I saw this behavior here before.

Sorry I can not help any further. I advice you to use this thread to elaborate a clear text description of the problem and post a feedback in http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Good luck.
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User profile for user: babowa
babowa
User level: Level 9
78,103 points

Sep 27, 2010 8:56 AM in response to Wellenbrett

Have you tried to use the Finder view options to set up how you want your icons displayed? Go to Finder -> View -> Show View Options and then choose "arrange by:..."? I have mine set to "none", which means they stay and re-appear in the exact spot I originally put them. I've not had a problem with that since 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, and now 10.6.

And, for what it's worth, the other poster was correct: it will definitely slow down your Mac's performance to have too many icons on the desktop because each one is treated as an "application" when you boot up. But, of course, that is up to you.
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Desktop icons get mixed up after reboot

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