XFCE desktop - system icons themselves arrange off the screen

[Stevan Kew Ell]

When clicking "Arrange Desktop Icons" in XF Desktop properties, the system icons, Home. Wastebasket and Removable Devices (I don't use the additional "Filesystem option) arrange themselves off the screen area to the left rather than at the top left and visible. A tiny portion of an icon is just visible, provising a clue as to what has happened.
A workaround is to choose "Desktop Settings", the Icons tab, and un-select and re-select the system icons. when they appear at the end (bottom right) of the desktop, or tolog out and log back in, which arranges the icons in a half-expected manner.
This issue may account for some reports of invisible disk mounts on the desktop, where the mount icons may simply be off the screen.
Additionally, the icons do not sort themselves into any sensible order.
The expected action is to arrange with known icons first, followed by folders, followed by files in alphabetical order, but the arranged order appears to be random.

Lenovo E145, fglrx.
Description: Ubuntu Vivid Vervet (development branch)
Release: 15.04
--
xfdesktop4:
  Installed: 4.12.0-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4.12.0-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 4.12.0-1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
--

[Aliakc (aliakc)]

Created attachment 6028
Correct Arrange of Icons

Looks like a misplacement bug has shown up between 4.11 until 4.12 final release. I'm using XFCE 4.12 from Fedora COPR and saw a misbehaviour when pressing "Arrange Desktop Icons". The icons magically disappear, get aligned elsewhere, show up again, go away and so on. The only way to get them back is going into "Desktop Settings -> Icons -> Change Icon Type to something else and then back". Attached 3 Screenshots. This didn't happen with 4.11, so this must be a quite close recent change inside GIT.

[Aliakc (aliakc)]

Created attachment 6029
Incorrect Arrange of Icons (After pressing Arrange Desktop Icons)

[Aliakc (aliakc)]

Created attachment 6030
After changing Icon Type and then back. The Trashcan icon is missing.

Please note: It may be necessary to try this when using the desktop for quite a few hours. I also have an external Monitor that I turn on and off whenever necessary.

[Philip Müller (philm)]

@Ali: this regression got introduced during fixing #11266

The commit where the bug is introduced would be this:
http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=633eed4cf17491b5853df57e3dd7985a33546198

[Philip Müller (philm)]

So, after rebooting my PC, I can post an update here. Having following commit included, the icons don't jump of the edge anymore. Only Trash and Filesystem will disappear. You have to press F5 to get them back:

http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=7f39f313895f4678f06f24519eab5486371f9360

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

The following commit in my branch should resolve the placement issue:

https://github.com/thad-fisch/xfdesktop/commit/72b04221eaecd67b07f4c0ff51b1525aa8d279c5

[Philip Müller (philm)]

Yes, I can confirm that this fixes it. I updated my distro and everybody is happy ;) Thx for fixing it.

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

Pushed to master: http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=70c0ba765f6b21c7cb1a9e1e16b4144795f7c70f

Thanks for testing the patch.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Elfy (elfy)]

Thanks - thought it was just an issue here, never totally sure of the state of my system. Reported upstream too.

[Elfy (elfy)]

*** Bug 11741 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

*** Bug 11792 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)]

Fixed in 4.12.1-2ubuntu1 (wily).

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Issue fixed upstream and in Ubuntu so marking "Fix Released" to close

[Antonio J. de Oliveira (ajoliveira-z)]

I have the same behaviour on 18.04 with ppa:xubuntu-dev/ppa. xfdesktop is 4.12. The only workaround is to make the system run xfdesktop -R -A after login. Anyone can do it adding the command to Session and Startup/Application Autostart.