Description of problem:

On real hardware, Nvidia frame buffer

After a few days of tinkering with M6/Plasma I've come to the
conclusion that as wrinkles occur ( randomly ) desktop icons
disappear. Sometimes simply rebooting the computer when you
get back to the desktop the icons are gone. You can successfully
drag new icons from the menu to the desktop and they are
fully functional again. If you right click on the desktop
to modify the setup more often then not the screen will go
black and when you return the icons will be gone.

Sorry not much more detail on this as I continue to tinker with Plasma.