Synopsis: gnome settings were corrupted
Fix with the following:
- rm -R .gconf/desktop/gnome/background
- Logout / Login
There was really only one file that was deleted from the fix:
.gconf/desktop/gnome/background/%gconf.xml
Details from original post:
When the picture_opacity value from the gnome background image is set to 200 the background image disappears and never comes back until the config files are removed.
Steps:
causes the problem: gconftool-2 -t str --set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_opacity "200"
solved the problem: rm -R .gconf/desktop/gnome/background (and restart gnome)