nautilus broken for user account but not root

[Jim Cornette]

Ben Vitale wrote:
> Hi,
>   My system locked up today and upon restart, nautilus no longer works. 
> I see no desktop icons at all, and I can't bring up the right-click menu
> on my desktop.  Changing the desktop background via preferences has no
> effect, and "Browse Filesystem" does nothing.. even though the nautilus
> process is running..
> 
> But this is only a problem on the user account which was logged in when
> the crash took place.  When logging into GNOME as root, everything
> functions properly.
> 
> Is there a way I can restore whatever got trashed??
> 
> Thanks-
> Ben
> 
> 
try renaming .gnome .gnome2 .gnome_private .gnome2_private to *.old and 
then trying to startx again. All your ICON's and things should be like 
as a first time user. If you can login successfully now, you can copy 
needed stuff from the old files into the newly created ones. I usually 
delete the damaged directories and start clean.

clearing out the /tmp directory of maybe corrupted files might work to 
clean things up also. Remove directories marked as directory-user from 
/tmp and try logging in again. If you remove directories and files from 
/tmp you might need to restart your computer for things to get back to 
normal.

For you not to be able to right click on the destop to launch anything, 
it sounds like you really have a messed up gnome settings.

Also, the archives might be of help for locating a solution.

Jim