My Manjaro MATE desktop icons come up minimized, and have no label text. I had hosed my system myself, and installed the usual way. Then, the desktop icons were completely minimized, and no text. New items saved to the desktop are minimized.
I've looked at .config/mate, and found nothing.
I didn't abandon Ubuntu MATE exactly, and do contribute to my favorite GUI here; I turned my back on Canonical. There have been several apps upon which I had depended which disappeared from the repos over the length of time I've been using Ubuntu. All those apps are in the AUR, and I need those apps. Manjaro, by the way, is very close to the user-friendliness of Ubuntu, and, like Ubuntu MATE, is as good for beginners as power users and old hands.