disappearing icons

Question

Level 1

6 points

disappearing icons

I know there are a few people saying they have the odd icon disappearing, but right now I am noticing a lot of icons missing.
The eject button on my dock, for instance will sometimes disappear.
Many applications just have a generic application icon. Many files have no icon whatsoever (i can only identify them by the filename underneath).

In general, it seems like 10.6 is trying to redraw icons more (when opening a stack for instance), and that the process seems noticeably slower.

The odd thing is that opening in coverflow will force the icons to redraw, but then the images in coverflow are sometimes different from the actual icon.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 8, 2009 6:26 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 10, 2009 12:12 AM in response to jackjames

I'm seeing a lot of icon redrawing going on in Finder.

I usually use column view, and since upgrading to 10.6 I'm finding that - particularly in the Applications folder if I haven't been there in a little while - as I scroll down the column I'm seeing the generic application icon for most of the apps. They do get replaced by the app's actual icons as I scroll, but prior to going to 10.6, it was really rare to see an app with generic application icon due to a slow redraw.

I have found that the proper application icons do stick around for a while (i.e., I can do other things and come back to the Applications folder and they're still okay), but it does seem that if a certain amount of time passes between visits to the Application folder, the generic icons reappear.

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Answer 2

macvos

Level 1

20 points

Sep 10, 2009 3:13 AM in response to jackjames

At the moment, the dock icons of applications I start disappear and become transparent. So I only see the white dot when the app is running. Otherwise I simply see an empty space - but when I hover it, the app's name is shown and when I click it, the app is started. Very strange.

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Answer 3

Sep 10, 2009 7:38 AM in response to macvos

This happened on my MacBook after software update finished installing iTunes 9.

The solution was to drag the empty space from the dock onto the desktop and the puff of smoke indicated that the empty space has been disposed off.

Next, I restarted the MacBook and then dragged the iTunes application back onto the dock to recreate its icon. That seems to have fixed the problem although I don't know why it occurred in the first place.

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Answer 4

macvos

Level 1

20 points

Sep 10, 2009 8:07 AM in response to jackjames

With me, after a restart, the icons were still transparent but after quit / start of the apps, the icons appeared again.

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Answer 5

Oct 5, 2009 5:02 PM in response to jackjames

I'm having the exact same problem on my macbook 13". I had to make a hard restart after a program crashed (by holding down the power button). I removed the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist file, restarted my computer, and the dock settings were back to their default. Then I put the .plist file back, restarted again, and everything was back to normal (I have my original dock back and everything is visible).

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