For some reason kde 5.7.4 does not save or honour the icon location on desktop after a reboot or a shutdown. Icons are moving around in random order along the desktop space. Locking them down does not work, this bug is also present in earlier versions of KDE Plasma 5. This bug is annoying and was not present in KDE Plasma 4 (at least the latest version that I was using). I don't like to use the folder view in KDE Plasma 5, since I find it difficult to use. Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Arrange icons on Desktop in special order. 2. Shut down computer for a while. 3. Power it up, there is a good chance icons are not where you placed them. This should not happen. Actual Results: Icons move around the desktop in random order after a shutdown or reboot. More common if the reboot or shutdown doesn't go as planned or the computer has been off-line for a few hours. Expected Results: Icons to be in the place where I put them on the desktop.
Do you notice anything unusual during/after login like a screen resolution change?
There is no change in screen resolution. I was checking a other problem that was making kactivitymanager crash (Bug 348194). One of the solution (comment 27) suggested there was that I deleted the following directories. ~/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resources/database and ~/.local/share/kscreen/* After deleting those databases and folders the icons did go into mess, but after moving them around as I wanted they have stayed on the correct location since.
Alright - please reopen if you have the problem again at a later time.
This bugs seems to have been resolved in KDE version 5.7.4 since it did not happen after a crash that got triggered by a different bug that I found. Earlier versions a crash did resolve in the icon being moved around from the locations I had dropped them. The fix seems to be the deletion of the files I did do few weeks ago.
Thanks for the update and sorry for the trouble!