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My Toolbar Bookmark Icons migrate and are mismatched. Gmail looks like a newspaper, etc. It's getting worse!

  • 14 replies
  • 8 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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My toolbar bookmark icons change constantly, and it's been getting worse lately. Gmail seemed to be the first, but now many more are changing. I delete titles for these so I can cram many of these onto the toolbar, so it's really important. After I click onto one of these errant icons, they will sometimes re-establish themselves, in Gmail, for example, after signing in. Other times they don't.

My toolbar bookmark icons change constantly, and it's been getting worse lately. Gmail seemed to be the first, but now many more are changing. I delete titles for these so I can cram many of these onto the toolbar, so it's really important. After I click onto one of these errant icons, they will sometimes re-establish themselves, in Gmail, for example, after signing in. Other times they don't.

Chosen solution

Try to restore them with this extension:

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All Replies (14)

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The Addon did not solve the issue cor-el. Thanks anyway.

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A possible cause is a problem with the file places.sqlite that stores the bookmarks and the history.

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Thanks for your kind help!

Modified by JustSammy

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You JustSammy 11 hours ago

Good article. Deleting the "places.sqlite" file forced FF to rebuild all those icons, which it did pretty fast (takes a while for them to take). They lasted about a day, then one of them went funny, not too bad really, but it does suggest the problem isn't fully solved.

I'm ready to delete these files and reinstall FF and see if that helps.

Thanks for your kind help!

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You're welcome

Are you using any cleanup software like CCLeaner or have other security (anti-virus ) software that checks files in the Firefox Profile Folder ?

It shouldn't happen that often that favicons or places.sqlite get corrupted.

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Yes. CCleaner runs all the time via the Addon Click and Clean. Every time I close FF and then some (when I want to clear out Gmail cookies after an email session, for example). That would explain it. I visited the profile folder discussed on your link, but don't know what to do with it.

Modified by JustSammy

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Which items are checked in CCleaner?

It is usually better to let Firefox handle such cleanup.
You can use Clear Recent History to do that on exit or let cookies expire if you close Firefox if you have set an allow exception for cookies that you want to keep.

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Hi, I've attached two images of screen grabs of CCleaner settings. (There's also a box for regedit that's checked and not visible.)

I feel I've done something uninformed with CCleaner. I do have FF dump all history and cookies upon exit, but CCleaner always comes up with more junk and I've assumed it is used for website tracking which I don't like.

I also use Ghostery set aggressively/experimentally. And Better Privacy is there too, to delete lso cookies on exit.

I do think these icon problems began though before I used any of the above mentioned Addons, but with earlier use of CCleaner. Although, as I said, it got a lot worse in time.

Modified by JustSammy

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Clearing the cache may cause this. Firefox stores the icons in the cache and clearing the cache in Firefox doesn't remove the favicons. CCleaner probably clears the entire cache and that causes that Firefox can no longer find the favicons, so be careful with the clear settings in CC for Firefox. If Session is ticked in CC then you will also lose App tabs and Tab Groups, in case you use them now or in the future.

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Thanks for this info on cache clearing. It doesn't make sense to me though, because when I deleted the "places.sqlite" file, ALL the favicons did go BLANK, and it took several minutes after FF restart for them to re-build. And, the problem I encounter with favicons is usually limited to just one, or two (until recently three or four) which doesn't jive with a general cache-clearing issue. It's as if they're stored in the "places.sqlite" file rather than cache. But you've certainly given me of ideas to experiment with, and gotten me to think more carefully about my FF settings in general.

What a nicely coined term, favicons. I really like them and miss it when a website, like my local library, fails to design one for their site.

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It looks that the favicons are stored as BLOB data (binary large object) in places.sqlite and not in the cache.

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I noticed several of my favicons and tab icons missing after Firefox updated. Now, I do have CC Cleaner (on PC only) which I ran prior to the update, didn't notice favicons or tab icons missing on my PC. Question is; Firefox updated on my PC and my MAC, I do not have CC Cleaner on my MAC yet favicons and tab icons are also missing on my MAC after the update. Weird isn't it?

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Chosen Solution

Try to restore them with this extension: