Help! 17.04 Desktop directory shows file but it's not on the desktop

Support & Help Requests
1

I have 17.04. I, using the file manager, copied icons from /usr/share/applications to ~/Desktop. They show up on the desktop. Then I copied one of the Backup (looks like a safe) applications to my desktop. I realized that it was not the particular one I wanted so sent it to the Trash from the Desktop directory. It disappeared from my desktop as it should. I then did the same thing with the correct icon in Applications. Horrors! It is in the Desktop directory but does not show on the desktop. Where did it go? I would like my Icon please!

2

I looked in that dir and there are no icons in there.

The files are similar to desktop files.

I found a safe icon.

3

Question: is your installation language English (US)?

4

Yes. Why? Am I asking the question wrong?

5

I don’t understand. In the application directory, Backup icons are safes. In the Desktop directory, they are files with a .desktop extension. On my desktop there is a one to one correspondence of the icon to the file in the Desktop directory except once I sent the icon on my desktop to the trash, it disappeared from my desktop directory. Then when I copied the icon again, the entry appeared in the Desktop directory but not on my Desktop.

6

No. There's sometimes weird stuff happening when you have both a ~/Desktop folder and a localized version of that same folder, so I wanted to know if it might be the case here.

Have you tried emptying the trash?
Is the absence permanent or does it shows up after a logout / login?

There is something very weird happening when I try to reproduce your issue in 16.04:

7

I think you misunderstand. There is only one version of the folder - ~/Desktop. Where I mention “desktop”, I am referring not to the folder but to the desktop I am looking at on my computer monitor. That should reflect the contents of the ~/Desktop directory. Desktop with capital D is the folder. Desktop with lower case d is what one looks at on the screen. I always use Copy/Paste or “Copy To” from fmgr.

Yes, I thought it might be a trash issue. But it wasn’t. However, after I rebooted a few times (for other reasons), suddenly it appeared on my desktop. Works great.