I have several icons on my desktop. In Caja’s preferences, I ticked ‘Use compact layout’ which would format the icon texts so that it is displayed nicely in one line when possible. However when I log into the system again after ending my session, the icons are back to non-compact. When I go to Caja’s settings that box is still ticked, but just not effective. I can fix that by unticking it then ticking again, but after a new session it won’t work again. Anyone know what to do?
I’m using MATE on Debian Jessie (this site seems to be the largest MATE community forum so I posted here - and Ubuntu is based on Debian anyway so there shouldn’t be major differences)
What version of caja are you using?, Debian MATE no necessarily uses the same version. On Ubuntu Mate Caja is running on the 1.12.7 version (LTS 16.04). Another thing is that Caja changes the “Use compact layout” for folders that has never been opened before (new folders). For example if my personal folder is currently on “icon layout” and I change the option for “compact layout” for preferences, the action does not override the icon layout configuration (if I want compact layout i have to modify through Ctrl + 3 or using tool bar because is no a New folder) . So each folder has been at least opened one time keeps the last layout that you previously chose (if you changed it), despite of if I modify the preferences option.
Otherwise it could be a problem of privileges or permissions (I would check .conf/caja folder), if there is not write permission on the conf any changes you make on Caja will be not keeped.