desktop vanished

[Tom_ZeCat]

Frustrating. I don't know how it happened, but suddenly every single icon I put on the desktop is gone and there's a different wallpaper. I thought maybe I inadvertently hit Meta+Tab and used that ridiculous feature for having multiple desktops, but Meta+Tab does not bring back my desktop or any other one. Kubuntu's launcher and installed programs do appear to run, thankfully. Anyone know what's going on? How can I get my desktop back? And if this is related to the multiple desktop feature or something similar is there some way I can just shut that off, as it's a feature I don't intend to ever use.

[claydoh]

Don't know. It can't be an Activity switch, because you would have had to physically create a new one for meta-tab to switch to.

Good old-fashioned virtual desktops, those are by default set to one, and you would have to physically change that in System Settings. Shift-f1/f2/f3 etc would be the key combo to switch to another on if you have more than 1, but they would by default have the same wallpaper as your main desktop.

You can check the Activity Manager from the Cashew thingy at the top of your screen, or Ctrl-Q, to see if you have any floating around, and you can delete/turn off any from there.

Check System Settings for Virtual desktops, and make sure that you have things set to have only one desktop, just in case/

If it isn't an Activity or vd, I don't know what might cause what you see this.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Okay! I clicked on that desktop icon in the upper right of the screen and chose "activities". A panel came up and showed the option to delete a desktop, which I did. Now I'm back to normal. Thanks!

I don't understand what happened. Did I inadvertently activate some kind of alternate desktop?

[claydoh]

Somewhere at some point you created a new Activity as there is only one by default. meta-tab would switch between them.




........well I am completely wrong there. As a daily user of Activities, I've always had to create a second or third one out of the box, even on Trusty. Seems my recollection is wrong on this, as there are two of them by default in this stock 14.04.3 I recently installed, so you must have hit a meta-tab inadvertently somewhere.