Mac OS X: Icons Appear Stacked Upon Each Other, Cannot Be Moved

Icons in a Finder window or on the desktop may appear stacked upon each other. They cannot be moved, and when you try to sort the icons or clean up the desktop, it does not work. Upgrade to Mac OS X 10.2 to avoid the issue.
Symptom

Icons in a Finder window or on the desktop appear stacked upon each other and cannot be moved.


Additional information

This issue may occur when a folder has valid Mac OS X placement information (.DS_Store file) and files in the folder have valid Mac OS 9 placement data (stored in the HFS file system). Deleting the .DS_Store file helps, but only until the files are again changed in Mac OS X.
Published Date: Feb 17, 2012