Most Gnome Desktop icons disappear, when a file on desktop is changed

[Otto Pellinen]

I've been having this bug for a while now: I have files on my desktop, and every time I make changes to a file and save the changes, most of my file icons on the desktop disappear. There is no clear logic to which icons vanish and which remain. It seems to affect any file type, including folders, but never all of them.

The issue can be mitigated by opening the Desktop from Files (nautilus), or by refreshing the gnome-shell (<Alt>+F2 -> 'r' + return).

It can be easily reproduced on my device, and it happens even after a fresh restart.

I'm running on Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS

$apt-cache policy gnome-shell
gnome-shell:
  Installed: 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.2
  Candidate: 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.2
  Version table:
 *** 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.2 500
        500 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.36.4-1ubuntu1~20.04.2 500
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 Packages
     3.36.1-5ubuntu1 500
        500 http://fi.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.11.0-40.44~20.04.2-generic 5.11.22
Uname: Linux 5.11.0-40-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.21
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Nov 10 10:37:31 2021
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-08-03 (463 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
RelatedPackageVersions: mutter-common 3.36.9-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 1947377, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.