Comment 2 for bug 1743435

This keeps happening pretty often.

The workaround of killing the 100%-cpu-consuming Compiz process in a ctrl+alt+f1 terminal always works, and systematically, after that, after the boot completes, the desktop will be empty.
To fix that too, I open a terminal, look for a Nautilus process running, kill it, and then open a normal nautilus window. At that point the desktop icons show up.