[CentOS] Desktop cleared after reboot through VNC

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2006-11-07 at 13:58 -0500, Michael Velez wrote:
>  > On Tuesday 07 November 2006 03:18, Michael Velez wrote:
> > > I guess I corrupted the desktop when I rebooted through VNC 
> > but I don't know
> > > how to get it back.
> > >  
> > > Is there a way of retrieving this without having to delete 
> > this user and
> > > creating a new one?
> > 
> > Guessing sucks. Always try to figure out what's going on! 
> > Leaving this unknown 
> > can only lead to trouble down the road - it's always better 
> > to spend some 
> > time and find out whassup. You'll find out something bad has 
> > happened, or 
> > you'll learn how to better identify if something bad is 
> > happening later. 
> > Either way, you're ahead! 
> > 
> > Different WM have different locations for Desktop. KDE's 
> > desktop is usually in 
> > ~/Desktop. Check out that folder. 
> > 
> > If you really think corruption is in order, you might want to 
> > check your 
> > entire f/s with e2fsck: 
> > 
> > # shutdown -Fr now; 
> > 
> > Otherwise, you might have to recover from backups. (you DO 
> > have backups, 
> > right?) 
> > 
> 
> Actually, when I meant I corrupted the desktop, I didn't mean at a disk
> level.  I doubt e2fsck will fix this (although I'll run it anyway, you never
> know).  The reboot was proper; however, it was done through VNC which seems
> to have caused a different chain of events when closing the gnome-session.
> This is what I'm trying to figure out.  
> 
> As I mentioned in my previous e-mail all my *.desktop files are in my
> ~/Desktop directory.  They just do not appear on the desktop when I open my
> gnome session.   The session starts everything else (start menus, taskbar,
> startup applications - i.e. xclock) it's just my desktop that has become one
> solid color (dark blue) with no icons.  I can log in fine with other
> userid's and receive a good desktop, so this really has something to do with
> my user profile.  
> 
> At this point, I'm trying to figure out how a reboot through VNC could have
> made my gnome-session close improperly.
> 
> I don't know enough about gnome-sessions to figure this out myself.  Is
> there a file in the gnome profile that has desktop information (other than
> ~/Desktop)?
> 
> I've had to use VNC a lot lately so I have seen this once before.  I
> couldn't figure it out and I just deleted the user, created a new one, and
> re-installed user files from backup (which I have a wazoo of; I have more
> automated backup than a home environment actually needs).  My next e2fsck
> after that did not mention a corruption so it really has to be something in
> my profile files.
----
~/Desktop is the objects on your desktop (files / folders / etc.)

your settings are typically stored in ~/.gnome or ~/.gnome2 or ~/.gconf

try moving them... mv .gnome .gnome-bak one at a time and then log in
again and see what works. Moving them rather than deleting them allows
you to recover settings that you might want to keep

Craig