Ubuntu 18.04 Gnome blank file and directory icons

nautilus icons gnome 18.04

7,035

Solution 1

Running the following commands fixed the issues, though I'm not sure if both are needed or if it's only one of them:

gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme
gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme

This didn't change anything else other than restoring the icons, probably due to the fact that I never changed the theme to begin with – so I have to assume that some of the settings on my machine were badly configured and this reset them back to their defaults.

Solution 2

This also happened to me this week. After getting some updates, I lost folder icons and terminal changed to an odd icon.

This one worked fo me:

gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.interface icon-theme

Solution 3

going to Tweaks app -> Appearance -> Icons and selecting "Humanity" worked for me

7,035

Acidic

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Acidic over 1 year
After starting up my PC today I have noticed that all of the icons in both the Gnome desktop and in the Nautilus file explorer have all turned blank white, even the directory icons.

Desktop:

File explorer:

Restarting Gnome or rebooting the system doesn't help.
This is annoying and very disruptive, is there any way of fixing this without reinstalling Ubuntu?

Edit - Output of gsettings list-recursively | grep --ignore-case "icons":
```
org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons false
org.gnome.desktop.interface menus-have-icons false
org.gnome.desktop.interface toolbar-icons-size 'large'
org.gnome.desktop.interface buttons-have-icons false
```
- Oki Erie Rinaldi over 5 years
  
  have you did changes on any configurations?
- Acidic over 5 years
  
  @OkiErieRinaldi Nothing special or out of the ordinary. I've been using Ubuntu 18.04 on multiple machines for a few months now and this is the first time I came across such an issue.
- Fabby over 5 years
  
  Can you please execute gsettings list-recursively | grep --ignore-case "icons" and edit the output to that into your question and then ping me @Fabby? :-)
- Acidic over 5 years
  
  @Fabby Done, I've added the output to the question.
- Fabby over 5 years
  
  Seeing that mu first hunch was incorrect: does this problem also persist in the guest session? If yes: no further ideas...
- Acidic over 5 years
  
  @Fabby That actually does work! I created a new user and when I log in with it all of the icons appear as expected. I don't know how to detect the relevant differences between the two users though.
- Acidic over 5 years
  
  @Fabby Restoring the default Ubuntu theme fixed this, even though I didn't use a different theme and it changed nothing else.
- Fabby over 5 years
  
  @Acidic It's considered rude here to post your own answer if someone else helped you solve the issue and you should give them a chance first to post an answer first.
- Acidic over 5 years
  
  @Fabby I thank you for your help, but I don't see how my answer has anything to do with you. I just googled "reset ubuntu theme" and came accross this: askubuntu.com/questions/1054868/…