Solved Programs suddenly missing their icons

biyakuga · Nov 8, 2023

Hey,

I currently freshly installed Windows 11 version23H2 on a new computer and for unknow reason some of the programs I installed 1 day ago are missing image icons.

1. How do I fix it?
2. Why this is happening?

Here in the image as you can see there is no image icon anymore for the CPUID HWMonitor and GameFirst VI both icon open and run those programs perfectly fine.

Thanks, in advance.

johnlgalt · Nov 8, 2023

Start with the basics - have you rebooted the machine since this occurred?

FreeBooter · Nov 8, 2023

Clear icons cache with attached batch script to see problem resolves.

biyakuga · Nov 9, 2023

johnlgalt said:
Start with the basics - have you rebooted the machine since this occurred?

Yes, I did it, but nothing has changed.

biyakuga · Nov 9, 2023

FreeBooter said:
Clear icons cache with attached batch script to see problem resolves.

Could you please explain why did it happen and there is a built-in windows 11 solution for this?

johnlgalt · Nov 9, 2023

If the icon cache got corrupted, there could be literally thousands of reasons - or, more succinctly, thousands of applications that run normally as a part of Windows OS, any one of which might have tried to access the icon cache while another one was also doing so, and poof! corruption.

It's not unheard of, but it is also something that should not ever happen with any regularity - kinda like seeing a shooting star, just one of those randomly occurring moments.

Other causes can include a (partially) failing hard drive / SSD, an improper shutdown (including things like a power outage), a forced reboot when updating, an application crash, Windows Explorer itself crashing, and so many, many more reasons.

If it continues to happen after you fix it, you'll need to start looking at the why - right now, treat it s a one-off occurrence of something breaking, and you now knowing how to fix it.

biyakuga · Nov 9, 2023

johnlgalt said:
If the icon cache got corrupted, there could be literally thousands of reasons - or, more succinctly, thousands of applications that run normally as a part of Windows OS, any one of which might have tried to access the icon cache while another one was also doing so, and poof! corruption.

It's not unheard of, but it is also something that should not ever happen with any regularity - kinda like seeing a shooting star, just one of those randomly occurring moments.

Other causes can include a (partially) failing hard drive / SSD, an improper shutdown (including things like a power outage), a forced reboot when updating, an application crash, Windows Explorer itself crashing, and so many, many more reasons.

If it continues to happen after you fix it, you'll need to start looking at the why - right now, treat it s a one-off occurrence of something breaking, and you now knowing how to fix it.

Ok thank you!

gmcgee78 · Nov 9, 2023

I had the same thing happen to my taskbar. Some of the icons were invisible. There were spaces between the ones I could see and I could hover over them with the cusor and it would say what they were. I right clicked them and I was able to open them by there name. After that they was not invisible anymore. I just 3 days ago upgraded to windows 11 23H2 from windows 10 22H2. Another thing I noticed was when I tried to open a video I was asked what I wanted to use to open it. It always just opened before. Strange things happen after some of these updates.

biyakuga · Nov 12, 2023

FreeBooter said:
Clear icons cache with attached batch script to see problem resolves.

johnlgalt said:
If the icon cache got corrupted, there could be literally thousands of reasons - or, more succinctly, thousands of applications that run normally as a part of Windows OS, any one of which might have tried to access the icon cache while another one was also doing so, and poof! corruption.

It's not unheard of, but it is also something that should not ever happen with any regularity - kinda like seeing a shooting star, just one of those randomly occurring moments.

Other causes can include a (partially) failing hard drive / SSD, an improper shutdown (including things like a power outage), a forced reboot when updating, an application crash, Windows Explorer itself crashing, and so many, many more reasons.

If it continues to happen after you fix it, you'll need to start looking at the why - right now, treat it s a one-off occurrence of something breaking, and you now knowing how to fix it.

I run the cache rebuild script, but it did not change anything.
Is there anything else I can do?

Fabler2 · Nov 12, 2023

Try right clicking the icon -properties -change icon -select the icon (hopefully it will be showing) -ok and apply. You might have to refresh the desktop.

johnlgalt · Nov 12, 2023

And you could try uninstalling and then re-installing the programs not showing their icons correctly.

biyakuga · Nov 12, 2023

Fabler2 said:
Try right clicking the icon -properties -change icon -select the icon (hopefully it will be showing) -ok and apply. You might have to refresh the desktop.

View attachment 77470

Thank you that fixed the problem.

Fabler2 · Nov 12, 2023

biyakuga said:
Thank you that fixed the problem.

Thanks for the confirmation. Sometimes Windows needs a nudge.

FDretired · Nov 12, 2023

biyakuga said:
Hey,

I currently freshly installed Windows 11 version23H2 on a new computer and for unknow reason some of the programs I installed 1 day ago are missing image icons.

1. How do I fix it?
2. Why this is happening?

Here in the image as you can see there is no image icon anymore for the CPUID HWMonitor and GameFirst VI both icon open and run those programs perfectly fine.

View attachment 77115
Thanks, in advance.

This has occurred with me intermittently for some time.

I use Firefox and have set it up that on exit bookmarks are converted to HTML file and it located in Firefox folder

C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox

https://www.askvg.com/tip-enable-automatic-backup-of-mozilla-firefox-bookmarks-in-html-file-at-shutdown/

This html file is my HOME page.

When the icons are corrupted I just drag the bookmark to the desktop. It work in correcting the icons most of the times.