On Saturday 15 August 2009 05:23:59 Steven F. LeBrun wrote:
After obtaining a list of the hidden directories used by gnome, I
was
able to rename existing directories, log out, log back in and see if the
desktop icons were displayed. Through a series of trials and errors,
the problem was in my old ~/.local/share/applications directory. My old
version contained 395 entries and the new one contained 2.
What is not solved is exactly which of the 394 files is the problem.
Almost all the files in the broken directory are desktop configuration
files along with a couple of list (text) files. I did copy the wine
subdirectory from my broken applications directory to the working one
without a problem while resolving missing wine applications that were
installed.
General tip for handling this kind of thing -
1) copy your existing ~/.local/share/applications directory to something like
~/.local/share/applications_sav
2) restore one directory from the broken directory
3) if there are problems, you have identified the source. Copy
~/.local/share/applications_sav back to ~/.local/share/applications
3_sub) create the directory that you wanted to copy back and restore essential
files from it, one at a time, until it breaks. Now you have the real culprit,
and must recreate that one from scratch.
4) repeat as necessary - don't forget to start from 1) so that you always have
the partially restored and still working version.
Slow, yes, but you will get back most of what you had. Making a guess at your
applications most likely to have been in use when the problem occurred would
be a good starting place. Identifying the problem(s) at the beginning of the
process is less nerve-wracking than getting a long way and still being unsure.
:-)
Anne
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