Eclipse Icon not shown, desktop file points to xpm

Question

I recently installed the latest version of Eclipse that I downloaded from the Eclipse website. It is located at /opt/eclipse. I have a symbolic link form /usr/bin/eclipse to /opt/eclipse/eclipse. I also have a file named eclipse.desktop in /usr/share/applications, whose contents are as follows:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Eclipse
Comment=Eclipse C++ IDE
Exec=/opt/eclipse/eclipse
Icon=/opt/eclipse/icon.xpm
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Development;
StartupWMClass=Eclipse

/opt/eclipse/icon.xpm exists. However, the icon is not shown in the dock or in the list of applications. Any ideas? I'm on Ubuntu 14.04.

EDIT: Tried updating StartupWMClass, doesn't help. Here's a screenshot that captures the situation:

[ enter image description here ]

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

I am pretty sure you have another eclipse.desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications. The one you show in the image looks fine. Most likely, you ran Eclipse a single time before moving it to /opt. Then a .desktop file is automatically created in ~/.local/share/applications.

.desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications overrule global ones in /usr/share/applications, which means that whatever you change to the global one, it has no effect whatsoever; the one in ~/.local/share/applications takes precedence ans is the one that shows in the Launcher.

If so, remove the one in ~/.local/share/applications, log out and back in.

EDIT

After your latest comment, it becomes clear what happened: It turns out you previously made a local launcher with alacarte. Alacarte does not handle icon paths correctly when using absolute paths; alacarte simply leaves out the icon's extension, but extensions are needed when using absolute paths.

Eclipse Icon not shown, desktop file points to xpm

2 Answers2

EDIT

Linked