Catalina forgets desktop layout on restart

[Ayjay Cee]

Hi, First time poster here - please be gentle. I have a 2014 MacBook Pro Retina 13 which has been almost faultless since bought new and the only change from stock since then has been when I fitted a 512GB SSD a couple of years ago. However, over the last couple of weeks, whenever I restart it (ie. to switch between MacOS and Windows in Bootcamp) and restart back into MacOS I have found that the positions of various icons for folders, documents and website addresses that I like to keep on my desktop are not remembered by 'the system' and they are all set out in unordered rows the right of the screen. I attach screenshots from before and after restart.

As I say, this has only been happening for a couple of weeks and the fact that I updated to Catalina 10.15.6 on 19 July may or may not be relevant.

I find this very annoying as I’m a bit OCD about a neat desktop therefore have to rearrange things after each restart. Any suggestions to correct the issue would be much appreciated.

 

[Ayjay Cee]

Well., it's been 2 days without any comments now. In over 30 years of using computers, one thing that I thought I had learned is that I am never the first to encounter a particular issue but maybe this is now a personal first.

 

[Ayjay Cee]

Well I had to restart again earlier on to finish the install of an app and when the desktop screen came back, it even had a Webloc file on it that I thought I had deleted a while ago (and subsequently emptied the bin). Please, please help on this one - it's driving me mad!

 

[cgscotto]

Sorry you are not getting any responses, which must be frustrating. I have a similar problem involving two monitors. I have a number of applications that open at part of my start-up process. I place these windows in various places on each monitor. I hope that each time I restart these windows will be in my preferred locations, but on every restart I have to reposition each window.

Did you use the Finder preferences to set the arrangement of the items, cmd + J?

 

[Ayjay Cee]

Cgscotto. Many thanks for that - the silence was getting eerie! Sorry for being thicker than usual but when I press cmd + j nothing happens (in desktop or finder!). Could you expand on that please. Again, many thanks.

 

[Ayjay Cee]

OK, Tried again - cmd+J does open a dialogue box but no matter what I check, when I restart, I'm back to the same issue with everything stacked up (and unordered) on the left of the screen.

 

[cgscotto]

Maybe a corrupt preference file in the finder? You could try resetting the NVRAM, but just be aware that this resets other settings, such as volume. You can read about resetting NVRAM here:

Reset NVRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

If one or more settings stored in NVRAM don't work as expected on an Intel-based Mac, resetting NVRAM might help.

support.apple.com

 

[Ayjay Cee]

Again, thanks. I've got to log off now but will try the NVRAM thing tomorrow and report back. Have a good night (or whatever it is where you are!).

 

[Ayjay Cee]

CGscotto. That seems to have done the trick - many, many thanks for your help on this one.