Comment 21 for bug 1812883

I experienced this issue when I upgraded 18.04 -> 20.04 as well. In my case, any file updates to any locations regardless of ~/Desktop will blink all file icons in Desktop. Also, any updates to a file will have some latency to update a file.

Just for letting you know my workaround: disable desktop icons. This will make you unable to see icons of course, but you will not see annoying blinking anymore.

$ gnome-shell-extension-prefs # Disable "Desktop icons"