"Open With" application icons missing

When I right click on a file > "Open With", then the icons for a few applications are often missing.

For example, see this image: http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6947/screenshot20091006at124.png

It even happens with Numbers and stuff...

MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 6, 2009 4:43 AM

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10 replies

Oct 19, 2009 1:51 AM in response to i.3d

I had this problem straight after installing snow leopard, as well as some application icons missing when looking at my apps folder in icon view.

I clicked on 'View' in the finder toolbar and then "clean up' then 'arrange by name' in the view menu again, and miraculously everything appeared normal and has been fine ever since. I don't know why this worked or what caused the problem. I just know that tinkering with the 'view' options in the finder was the remedy for my machine.

Oct 21, 2009 11:47 AM in response to rudi_e

Sometimes they are there, sometimes they aren't. For reasons unknown the Snow Leopard Finder has some difficulty finding and displaying the icons inside of packages/bundles. Eventually it does manage, and once it gets them it hangs onto them, until you reboot. Try this: select a file and do the right click "Open with" but don't bother selecting anything from the list. Then select a similar file, that would open with the same programs, and try Open With for it. I just now did that with a jpg and then a png. The second time the Open With list had all its little icons in place. My guess is the icons are cached somewhere, the cache gets emptied on shutdown, and after a restart Finder doesn't bother to repopulate the cache until it has some reason to do so. It then takes a few seconds to recreate the cache (exactly how long may depend on the speed of your machine, whether or not you have multiple drives with stuff on them, how fast the drives are, and so on), after which it works it works fine. Until you reboot.
Francine

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Francine
Schwieder

Nov 15, 2009 9:41 AM in response to rudi_e

Yep - the exact same thing has been happening to me since I purchased my MBP - I immediately installed SL over the pre-installed Leopard, so don't know if it's purely a SL issue, but seems like... Anyone have a solution yet? It's reassuring to find others experiencing the same little niggling problem but still an annoyance...

Message was edited by: FamilyJules

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"Open With" application icons missing

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