Comment 20 for bug 317076

I can't seem to reproduce your problem!
This were the steps I took:

Compiled it from svn using the guide you mentioned.

Got the icon in the pixmaps dir using:
> sudo cp ~/nicotine+/files/nicotine-plus-32px.png /usr/share/pixmaps

Created a file called nicotine in my Desktop and wrote in there:

#!/bin/sh
# Launch nicotine
exec python ~/nicotine+/nicotine

Moved it:

> cd ~/Desktop
> sudo cp nicotine /usr/bin
> sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/nicotine

Dragged the .desktop file from ~/nicotine+/files/ to Docky.

Launched it, everything OK.

Please note that "nicotine" is a python file (the developers just didn't write the extension) so probably the nicotine file you have on /usr/bin is what's causing the problem! Also, you may want to change the exec line to

exec python /home/<you>/Applications/nicotine+/nicotine