xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

nixIT · 2026-06-17 18:48:44

I have 2 arch installs, pretty much identical configs. the only difference is on the machine in question, I recently re-installed arch, and up until about a month ago everything ran perfectly.

as you can guess from the title, my desktop icons are rearranging at random times. sometimes once a day, sometimes multiple times a day.

I deleted the contents of ~/.config/xfce4/desktop
didn't help.

logout settings "automatically save session..." is unchecked.

short of deleting ~/ I'm not sure what else to check. besides, if I were to delete ~/ from a different account, it would get recreated on login, correct? I know I'd lose all account setting, if I didn't back them up first. ?

has anyone else recently experienced this behavior?

/nixit

archaea · 2026-06-17 21:49:18

So are you seeing this behavior in only one user account but not any others? or have you not tested other user accounts?

When this happens do you see anything related in

journalctl -b

or in

/var/log/Xorg.0.log

The only times I've ever seen Xfce desktop icons automatically rearrange is associated with a change in the dimensions of the desktop, e.g. screen resolution change or possibly some types of changes to the Xfce panels

laszlo · 2026-06-18 16:32:04

archaea wrote:

So are you seeing this behavior in only one user account but not any others? or have you not tested other user accounts?
When this happens do you see anything related in
journalctl -b
or in
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
The only times I've ever seen Xfce desktop icons automatically rearrange is associated with a change in the dimensions of the desktop, e.g. screen resolution change or possibly some types of changes to the Xfce panels

For me, this also happens after waking the monitor. The screensaver itself doesn't cause this. However, when the monitor was on and the resolution hadn't changed, this never happened.

seth · 2026-06-18 18:51:07

The monitor will likely unregister on DPMS (very common w/ TVs at least) and some zealous service take the opportunity to re-arrange the displays (resulting in this artifact)
The nvidia X11 driver allows you to force an output to be considered enabled, for everything else injecting the EDID might help, but xfce seems to allow to control what happens when outputs get added/removed, https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-settings/display ?

nixIT · 2026-06-18 21:30:24

nothing odd in the logs.

I've dealt with this issue on and off over the years. the monitor is going to sleep however, it's always gone to sleep and when woken up the icons are in the correct spot. it's just popped up again on my system, nothing monitor, screensaver, resolution has changed, unless the monitor going to sleep causes it.

@seth, thanx, I will check out that link.

nixIT · 2026-06-19 12:53:00

archaea wrote:

So are you seeing this behavior in only one user account but not any others? or have you not tested other user accounts?
When this happens do you see anything related in
journalctl -b
or in
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
The only times I've ever seen Xfce desktop icons automatically rearrange is associated with a change in the dimensions of the desktop, e.g. screen resolution change or possibly some types of changes to the Xfce panels

I can report back that it happens on newly created users as well.
I did recently change out my video cable with this one from amazon:
https://a.co/d/08JcXpRT

I cant be sure if the issue started before of after.

/nixit

nixIT · 2026-06-19 18:12:08

seth wrote:

The monitor will likely unregister on DPMS (very common w/ TVs at least) and some zealous service take the opportunity to re-arrange the displays (resulting in this artifact)
The nvidia X11 driver allows you to force an output to be considered enabled, for everything else injecting the EDID might help, but xfce seems to allow to control what happens when outputs get added/removed, https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-settings/display ?

thanx for the link, I've tried all those settings, and it appears to happen on a newly created account. this is leading me to either:

1) new cable may be causing this
2) something in xfce changed, though not experiencing this on my thinkpad.
3) something do to with AMD GPU and MSI monitor
4) gremlins

for now, I guess I just wont worry about where my icons are.

archaea · 2026-06-19 18:35:18

nixIT wrote:

I can report back that it happens on newly created users as well.
I did recently change out my video cable

Thanks for this detail. Video cable was actually my first thought when reading your OP. Do you have another video cable you can test with? Or some way to check your video cable?

Does your new video cable have any meaningfully different specs from your old video cable?

When you changed the video cable, did anything else change as well (like DisplayPort vs some other way to connect, or different specific DisplayPort port(s) on either the computer or the monitor, or possibly even some of the monitor's settings)?

seth · 2026-06-19 18:37:54

Can we see the gremlins in action? Do they show up in "udevadm monitor" or your Xorg log?
Can you starve them by disabling https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Displa … aling#Xorg (the part where you deactivate the module)

jmj · 2026-06-19 21:37:28

I experienced this recently when I turned off my monitor while Xfce was running. Normally I reboot or let dpms take over but I could reproduce the rearranging of icons 100% by pressing the power button on the monitor. I "fixed" this by copying the icons section from my monitor to the "Default Monitor" section inside ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/icons.screen0.yaml. This has to be done while Xfce isn't running. I don't change my icons often so this works for me :shrug:

Arch Linux

#1 2026-06-17 18:48:44

xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#2 2026-06-17 21:49:18

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#3 2026-06-18 16:32:04

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#4 2026-06-18 18:51:07

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#5 2026-06-18 21:30:24

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#6 2026-06-19 12:53:00

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#7 2026-06-19 18:12:08

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#8 2026-06-19 18:35:18

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#9 2026-06-19 18:37:54

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

#10 2026-06-19 21:37:28

Re: xfce icons changing positions randomly...is back

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