Sometimes you start the computer and you see that the desktop is totally (no icons at all) or partially empty. For me that I have folder view desktop option, to fix this problem, I switch to Desktop mode and then I return back to Folder View mode. I saw this happening on many computers running KDE 4.8.2 and folder view option Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: .
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 294795 ***