PapirusDevelopmentTeam / papirus-icon-theme → Issues → New issue

[teriodore]

What Linux distro are you using?

Linux Mint 21.3 "Virginia"

What Desktop environment are you using?

Cinnamon on X11 - Nemo

How did you install Papirus icon theme on your computer?

distribution package manger / apt: papirus-icon-theme

Is this issue related to an app?

Possibly qBittorent, but not confirmed - see my issue history for tonight

Describe the issue

Update: I also updated Papirus to the latest available commit using the Papirus Installer as requested by the issue template. The issue still occurs with Papirus-Dark after updating.

Switching away from Papirus-Dark to Linux Mint’s Mint-Y icon theme still fixes the folder icons immediately.

Possibly qBittorrent icon overrides, but the current reproducible bug is with Papirus-Dark folder icons in Nemo.

After experimenting with qBittorrent tray/application icon overrides in ~/.local/share/icons, folder icons in Nemo became broken while using the Papirus-Dark icon theme.

The issue appears to be specific to Papirus-Dark: switching the Cinnamon icon theme to Mint-Y immediately restores normal folder icons. Switching back to Papirus-Dark breaks them again.

I searched existing issues for Nemo, Cinnamon, folder icons, Papirus-Dark, Mint-Y, and ~/.local/share/icons, but did not find a matching report.

Linux distribution
Linux Mint 21.3 “Virginia”
Desktop environment
Cinnamon on X11
File manager
Nemo
Papirus installation method

Installed through the distribution package manager / apt:

papirus-icon-theme

I also tried reinstalling it:

sudo apt install --reinstall papirus-icon-theme

Related application

Possibly related to qBittorrent icon overrides, but not confirmed.

The issue appeared after experimenting with qBittorrent tray/application icon overrides in user icon paths. However, after cleanup there are no remaining qBittorrent icon files in ~/.local/share/icons or ~/.icons.

qBittorrent version:

qBittorrent v4.4.1
Package: 4.4.1-2 from Ubuntu/Mint apt repositories
Current icon theme
gsettings get org.cinnamon.desktop.interface icon-theme

Output:

'Papirus-Dark'

What happens:

Folder icons in Nemo are broken/missing/wrong when using Papirus-Dark.

Switching to Mint-Y fixes the problem immediately:

gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface icon-theme 'Mint-Y'
nemo -q

After this, Nemo folder icons display normally.

Switching back to Papirus-Dark causes the issue again:

gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.interface icon-theme 'Papirus-Dark'
nemo -q
Expected behavior

Nemo should display normal folder icons when Cinnamon is using the Papirus-Dark icon theme.

Actual behavior

Nemo folder icons remain broken under Papirus-Dark, while Mint-Y works correctly.

Things already checked

There are no remaining qBittorrent icon files in the user icon directories:

find "$HOME/.local/share/icons" "$HOME/.icons" -iname 'qbittorrent' -print 2>/dev/null

Output:

(no output)

Folder metadata does not appear to contain custom folder icons:

for d in "$HOME" "$HOME/Pictures" "$HOME/Music" "$HOME/Downloads" "$HOME/Documents" "$HOME/Videos"; do
[ -e "$d" ] || continue
echo "===== $d ====="
gio info -a 'metadata::*' "$d" 2>/dev/null | grep -i icon || echo "no custom icon metadata"
done

The only relevant metadata shown was layout-related, for example:

metadata::nemo-icon-view-auto-layout: true
Things already tried

Moved local user-level theme overrides aside:

stamp="$(date +%F-%H%M%S)"
BACKUP="$HOME/.local/share/icons.disabled.$stamp"
mkdir -p "$BACKUP"

for theme in Papirus-Dark Mint-Y-Sand; do
if [ -d "$HOME/.local/share/icons/$theme" ]; then
mv "$HOME/.local/share/icons/$theme" "$BACKUP/$theme"
fi
done

rm -f "$HOME/.local/share/icons/icon-theme.cache" 2>/dev/null
nemo -q

Result: no improvement.

Rebuilt Papirus icon caches:

sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f -t /usr/share/icons/Papirus-Dark
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache -f -t /usr/share/icons/Papirus

Result: no improvement.

Reinstalled Papirus:

sudo apt install --reinstall papirus-icon-theme

Result: no improvement.

Important diagnostic result
Mint-Y fixed it: yes
Papirus-Dark still broken after cache rebuild and package reinstall

So the issue appears to be specific to Papirus-Dark icon resolution/cache/inheritance, rather than Nemo folder metadata or a broken file manager configuration.

Mint-Y fixed it: yes
Papirus-Dark still broken after cache rebuild, apt reinstall, and updating to latest Papirus via Papirus Installer

Checklist

• I have searched the existing issues to make sure that's not a duplicate
• I updated Papirus icon theme to the last available commit (use Papirus Installer to update)
• Switching the icon theme to the default (Adwaita for GNOME Shell, Breeze for KDE Plasma) is fixing the issue

[teriodore]

Update:

I did some cleanup/security maintenance on the system and ended up switching qBittorrent from the Ubuntu/Mint APT package to the Flatpak version.

Before:

• Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon
• Papirus-Dark icon theme
• qBittorrent APT package: 4.4.1-2 from Ubuntu jammy/universe
• Tray icon issue was present

After:

• Removed the old APT qBittorrent package
• Disabled the unused qBittorrent unstable PPA
• Installed Flatpak qBittorrent from Flathub
• Current qBittorrent: 5.2.0 Flatpak
• Autostart now uses:
  flatpak run org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent

Result:

• The ugly/broken tray icon is gone
• qBittorrent now looks much better in the tray
• Torrents were restored by copying the old qBittorrent profile into the Flatpak profile:
  • old: ~/.config/qBittorrent and ~/.local/share/qBittorrent
  • flatpak: ~/.var/app/org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent/config/qBittorrent and ~/.var/app/org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent/data/qBittorrent

So in my case the issue appears to be specific to the APT/system-installed qBittorrent + tray/icon theme integration. The Flatpak build does not show the same broken tray icon here.