Desktop items disappearing with Aschrono dock

Valiant effort but Finder window still comes up empty. I know the Desktop is not empty and it resolves (typically) overnight. Files are not lost because they are still in Recents and they do reappear at some point later. But Shift+Command D definitely is not the answer.

I was hoping that the issue might be only with displaying the icons on the Desktop, but apparently it's more than that.

I have no idea why or how using the dock could cause this. It's a total mystery to me.

Another thing you may try, when the problem occurs, is to issue this command in Terminal:

ls ~/Desktop

Now I'd be extremely surprised if this did not list all the files that exist in the Desktop folder; but anyways, I'm surprised already by this issue, so...

Maybe you didn't try it, but I take it that the problem does not occur when using the laptop on its own, or does it?

If it does, then the dock is not to blame, but something else in your system.

After thinking about it a little, I am not convinced it's the dock at all...

ls ~/Desktop did list all the Desktop files. But did not restore the Desktop icons. I will take the laptop out of the dock but I've done that before and they (Desktop items) do not show up. Please hold...

I just undocked, opened the laptop and Desktop was restored - redocked and Desktop is still ok. But it does seem like something with the docking does trigger whatever it is. Part of the issue is I almost NEVER use the laptop not in a dock. Rarely not in the dock.

I guess when it happens again, I can always undock, open up the laptop, see if Desktop is restored, if so, simply redock. But I'd love to know what is causing it to behave this way.

This is a weird one. It does seem that using the dock sometimes triggers this problem, but I have no idea why that is. The problem affects Finder's capability of showing the contents of the Desktop, but apparently not the files themselves.

Maybe some firmware update for the dock can fix it, but this is way out of my depth.

Press Command-Shift-D to open a window with the contents of the Desktop folder.