they are still there, i can open them via applications, but i cannot see them in dolphin, the home folder shows nothing. I was trying to extract a zip file that was in home and ark crashed. When i open dolphin now and go to the home folder it fills up with these files "aacbad___" "aabcad____" "aacdadab___" and any variation of the letters after a. Sometimes if i double click an area a folder opens up. However, for the most part dolphin is fairly unresponsive, can't right click, can't really do anything once i open up the home folder, and it usually crashes as well. All the data is still there however.. it just seems to be hidden and something seems to be stuck in a continuous loop. If anyone has any idea, let me know. thanks

i'm running mepis 11, but(Debian squeeze with a slightly customized kernal)

try renaming ~/.kde/share/config/dolphinrc then if that doesn't work run: kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental

also try clearing you cache, it should be done with KDE not running

cache is /var/tmp/kdecache-user_name

It might also be helpful to open your home directory in a terminal, and check the list of files there. It is possible the zip file contained a number of files with long names or other characteristics which are causing Dolphin significant problems.

well, i tried everything suggested. nothing seemed to work.

also, as an update, it turns out i can't move to any folder in the home directory ether from the terminal.

and for kicks and giggles i tired making a files in root pointing to the /home/user folder and it worked, but, right after creating it it also became invisible..

i don't know.. this is weird.

test a different file manager, Krusader (will not require gtk/gnome packages) or Midnight Commander (is terminal based, open by typing mc in Konsole)

try as a new user

what about deleting the files using the rm command in Konsole? all the strange files end in ___

Please provide the output of "ls -lah /home" and the username you use. I suspect Root has somehow come to own directories that compose your Home directory.