This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

My web page short cut icons have chnged

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Christine

Christine
Christine
more options

My O/S is Windows 7 and I use the latest Firefox.

I have trouble with some of the Icons for web page short cuts, that I save to the Desktop. I make these short cuts from the Firefox browser on to my Desktop, using the drag and drop method. When I make a short cut, I keep the icon that automatically appears with it, which is specific to that particular web page. Some of the icons have changed arbitrarily. This happened after I cleaned the Computer using a third party programme. I tried making new short cuts after deleting these, but the same wrong icons keeps coming back.

See the two icons in attachment. One is showing the proper icon for g-mail and the other just a blank wrong icon.

How can I get back the original icons for these short cuts?

Thank you

My O/S is Windows 7 and I use the latest Firefox. I have trouble with some of the Icons for web page short cuts, that I save to the Desktop. I make these short cuts from the Firefox browser on to my Desktop, using the drag and drop method. When I make a short cut, I keep the icon that automatically appears with it, which is specific to that particular web page. Some of the icons have changed arbitrarily. This happened after I cleaned the Computer using a third party programme. I tried making new short cuts after deleting these, but the same wrong icons keeps coming back. See the two icons in attachment. One is showing the proper icon for g-mail and the other just a blank wrong icon. How can I get back the original icons for these short cuts? Thank you
Attached screenshots

Modified by Christine

All Replies (4)

Vault108
Vault108
more options

Hello,


I'm sure that if you right click on the shortcut and press properties you should see the icon in a window, and from there you can drag and drop you own icon over the other one, this should replace the shortcut icon. Now if i remember i think the icons get pulled from the Sites favicon so if the site does not have one then the icon will be blank. If you need something let me know.

From, Sir.Mayo

Christine
Christine Question owner
more options

Thank you for helping. I tried this but it does not work. In the Properties window, the icon is there alright, but I have no favicon to drag on to it.

This web site has it`s own favicon and that was always showing on this short cut before it changed, like I have shown above. Because it has changed, I have no other short cut made from that website with the proper favicon, to drag on to the icon in Properties. I tried making a new short cut but that also is turning out with the same wrong icon.

I wonder whether Firefox has a folder where it saves favicons. If there is, perhaps I can open it and delete the wrong icon and try to make the short cut again. Is there such a folder.

Regards,

Christine.

Modified by Christine

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can check for issues with the Windows icon cache and try to rebuild the icon cache.

  1. Open the Task Manager (Shift+Ctrl+ESC)
  2. In the Process tab, right-click on the Explorer.exe process and select End Process.
  3. Open the file picker via "File > New Task (Run)" and click the Browse button.
  4. Type or Paste %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local (%LocalAppData%) in the File name field (AppData is a hidden folder).
  5. Select the IconCache.db file and use "Delete" in the right-click context menu to delete the file.
  6. After the IconCache.db file has been deleted, start a new explorer.exe process via "File > New Task" to get the desktop and Taskbar back.

The IconCache.db file is a hidden file, so make sure that you can see hidden files.

Christine
Christine Question owner
more options

Hello cor-el,

I am sorry to be late in acknowledging your reply. I was away and did not have access to my computer.

Thank you for your suggestion, but rebuilding the Windows icon cache does not help with this problem. These favicons are web site specific. When a web page is saved to the desktop by 'drag and drop' in Firefox, the favicon is automatically created. Each is different and is the icon that belong to each web site. So this needs to be resolved within Firefox.

These favicons are not found among the windows icons stored in the computer.

Kind regards