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My bookmark favicons are not loading properly

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I'm using Firefox 70.0 on Mac (Mojave, 10.14.6), and all of a sudden, my bookmark favicons are not loading properly. I've tried clearing my cache and restarting, but that isn't helping. Any suggestions?

I'm using Firefox 70.0 on Mac (Mojave, 10.14.6), and all of a sudden, my bookmark favicons are not loading properly. I've tried clearing my cache and restarting, but that isn't helping. Any suggestions?

All Replies (8)

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In what way are the favicons not loading?

Can you attach a screenshot?


You can check for problems with the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder.

  • use "Verify Integrity" button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page

In case errors are reported with "Verify Integrity" close and restart Firefox and retry.

If "Verify Integrity" cannot repair places.sqlite, rename/remove all places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. Firefox will rebuild places.sqlite and restore the bookmarks from a recent JSON backup in the bookmarkbackups folder.

  • keep a backup copy of places.sqlite in case a new places.sqlite database has to be created

See also:

You can use the button on the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page to go to the current Firefox profile folder or use the about:profiles page.

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As you can see from the attached screenshot, the favicon is correct in the tab, but NOT in the Bookmarks. Each of the sites in that grouping (and in many others) should have its own unique favicon, but they are mostly defaulting to another favicon.

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I genuinely appreciate your detailed reply. Unfortunately, none of your suggestions worked. Also, I'm on a Mac, so there's no direct path to finding the Favicons Sqlite file (I tried looking for one and couldn't find it.) FYI, I'm on Firefox 70.0. So I'm still stuck.

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Someone already posted this. Didn’t help, especially because I’m on a Mac.

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Did you check for issues with places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite like I posted above?

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Those files don't exist on my computer. I tried searching for them.

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ZoinksScoob said

cor-el said
Did you check for issues with places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite like I posted above?

Those files don't exist on my computer. I tried searching for them.

If they don't exist, you wouldn't have any bookmarks. Search can't find them because they are in a hidden folder.

Anyway, the way you test for issues with those files is to use a built-in diagnostic:

Open Firefox's Troubleshooting Information page using any of these methods:

  • "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Return

Near the bottom, there is a section titled Places Database -- that's the file which stores history and bookmarks. Click the button labeled Verify Integrity. There may be a 10-15 second delay before results appear.

If all is well, the report that appears below the button should start with:

> Task: checkIntegrity
+ The places.sqlite database is sane
+ The favicons.sqlite database is sane

Does yours say that, or something else? You can select and copy the report, and then paste it into a reply for review and comment.

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Here's what I got for that:

> Task: checkIntegrity + The places.sqlite database is sane + The favicons.sqlite database is sane > Task: invalidateCaches + The caches have been invalidated > Task: checkCoherence + The database is coherent > Task: expire + Database cleaned up > Task: originFrecencyStats + Recalculated origin frecency stats > Task: vacuum + Initial database size is 30720KiB + The database has been vacuumed + Final database size is 30720KiB > Task: stats + Places.sqlite size is 30720KiB + Favicons.sqlite size is 21344KiB + pragma_user_version is 53 + pragma_page_size is 32768 + pragma_cache_size is -2048 + pragma_journal_mode is wal + pragma_synchronous is 1 + History can store a maximum of 104718 unique pages + Table moz_places has 39378 records + Table moz_historyvisits has 171790 records + Table moz_inputhistory has 16 records + Table moz_hosts has 0 records + Table moz_bookmarks has 911 records + Table moz_keywords has 0 records + Table sqlite_sequence has 1 records + Table moz_anno_attributes has 3 records + Table moz_annos has 365 records + Table moz_items_annos has 0 records + Table sqlite_stat1 has 18 records + Table moz_bookmarks_deleted has 0 records + Table moz_meta has 9 records + Table moz_origins has 1629 records + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_inputhistory_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_hosts_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_keywords_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_anno_attributes_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_bookmarks_deleted_1 + Index sqlite_autoindex_moz_origins_1 + Index moz_places_hostindex + Index moz_places_visitcount + Index moz_places_frecencyindex + Index moz_places_lastvisitdateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_placedateindex + Index moz_historyvisits_fromindex + Index moz_historyvisits_dateindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemindex + Index moz_bookmarks_parentindex + Index moz_bookmarks_itemlastmodifiedindex + Index moz_places_url_hashindex + Index moz_places_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_bookmarks_guid_uniqueindex + Index moz_annos_placeattributeindex + Index moz_items_annos_itemattributeindex + Index moz_keywords_placepostdata_uniqueindex + Index moz_bookmarks_dateaddedindex + Index moz_places_originidindex > Task: _refreshUI