macOS app icons are displaying as generic in dock and app drawer

Question

macOS app icons are displaying as generic in dock and app drawer

Some of my apps are displaying odd behavior and showing up as generic icons (see attached image of System Preferences after interacting with it in the Dock). This is on a brand new machine running macOS Mojave with 24GB of RAM. I saw a potential solution in the forum without any recent activity and was told to ask the question again. The solution to the problem was presented as typing "~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder/Cache.db" in a Finder "Go to Folder" dialog and moving the Cache.db file to the transfer and restarting the Mac. I found the file along with Cache.db-shm and Cache.db-wal. My questions: 1) Should I expect this solution to still work under macOS Mojave, and 2) Any idea if the "-shm" and "-wal" variants of Cache.db should also be trashed?

Thanks in advance,

Rob

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 12, 2019 2:55 PM

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Answer 1

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macjack

Level 10

111,204 points

Oct 12, 2019 3:02 PM in response to Robert Oliveira

It can't hurt to delete cache files as they will always be rebuilt. So go ahead and try that.

If that doesn't work then I'd rebuild LaunchServices, which are also cache files:

Launch Terminal.

Triple click anywhere on the following line to copy entire line then at the prompt copy & paste this command:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain u -domain s -domain l -v

Then press return. Wait for the cursor to return to the command line.

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Answer 2

Oct 12, 2019 4:13 PM in response to macjack

macjack,

Thanks for your help. I still had some of the generic icons after rebuilding LaunchServices, so I logged out and when I logged back in the icons were back to the way they should be. I'll keep an eye on it.

Robert

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Answer 3

macjack

Level 10

111,204 points

Oct 12, 2019 4:57 PM in response to Robert Oliveira

You're welcome, that's good news. It's possible it needs a log out and back in or a restart in Catalina, I'm not sure about that.

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macOS app icons are displaying as generic in dock and app drawer

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