Unable to open any apps from desktop

Hello, I recently updated and realized that I could not open any apps from their launchers on the desktop and toolbar, not even konsole or settings, I had my browser open when I ran the update, and it reopens after a restart, but apart from that and apps open in the background, I cannot start any app. Additionally, my desktop seems to be clear of all files and shortcuts I had on it. Attempting to launch a program from the taskbar results in it going through the animation but not opening.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Ethan

do you run KDE?
I had a similar issue there (empty desktop, launchers in menu not working) - but starting from konsole/yakuake or dolphin or ckb-next-configured shortcuts worked.

I had to rename plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc in ~/.config and restart Plasma twice to reset the things configured in there to default but after that it worked again.

Edit: Just do add, my dmesg was spammed with __vm_enough_memory: pid: 1000, comm: plasmashell, no enough memory for the allocation with almost no memory used, and that also disappeared with resetting that config file.

Additionally check desktop settings (right click on desktop), it should show folder view:

This was it!

I backed up the file, deleted the original, and then a reboot fixed it.

Thank you!