Ubuntu – Weird XDG User Dir resetting bug

12.04lightdmxdg

I have a weird problem with 12.04 LTS.

Regardless of what I do to the ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs file, whenever I login again the next time, that file gets all set to $HOME only. Something is happening during login using lightdm that overrides the contents of that file.

If I login and do a xdg-user-dirs-update --force then the contents of the file are OK. After I logout, the file is still OK. It's when I login again using lightdm that something goes wrong.

It's quite annoying.

Best Answer

There exists an autostart script

/etc/xdg/autostart/user-dirs-update-gtk.desktop

Which calls the program xdg-user-dirs-gtk-update, which appears to have no man page or --help explanation, but I am guessing might be the cause.

You can either delete this script (which appears to belong to the package xdg-user-dirs-gtk, and may be recreated if it is updated), or add a line Hidden=true to the autostart file, which should prevent it running (and you should be asked if you want to keep your modified copy during any future updates).

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