Finder icon weirdness

Question

Level 1

106 points

Finder icon weirdness

Has anyone else experienced these two Finder desktop icon issues:

1) Icons not showing up, replaced by a square dotted outlines, until you do something with them (drag them, or Get Info on them) (most commonly on login)

2) Disk icons showing incorrectly, such as USB drives showing up as generic hard-drive icons

There's also the occasional new file doesn't show up bug, but I think that's old. It's possible the above two are old too, but I didn't start noticing them until Lion. Between these and random icon-rearranging, folder window resizing, view options changing... I feel like I'm doing constant battle with the Finder (reminds me of that scene from Airplane! where the plane is punching Striker).

Posted on Jan 28, 2012 8:44 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 28, 2012 10:17 PM in response to David Yeh

1) Icons not showing up, replaced by a square dotted outlines, until you do something with them (drag them, or Get Info on them) (most commonly on login)

2) Disk icons showing incorrectly, such as USB drives showing up as generic hard-drive icons

Go to ~/Library/Preferences. Move the com.apple.finder.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Trash.

If that doesn't help, the startup disk may need repairing.

Use Lion Recovery

Reply

Answer 2

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Jan 29, 2012 12:05 AM in response to David Yeh

Yes, I've had the problems off and on since Lion was introduced. Deleting the com.apple.finder.plist file and repairing the drives has not made a permanent solution. I have also installed and reinstalled Lion dozens of time on three different Macs, clean installs and upgrades, and they all have had these issues.

Yes, dragging them slightly makes them visible again. Sometimes my external drives showup with the FireWIre icon and sometimes with the hard drive icon. I've even seen both icons show up on my FireWire external with 2 partitions.

Annoying.

Reply

Answer 3

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Jan 29, 2012 12:14 AM in response to Lanny

Lanny wrote:

I have also installed and reinstalled Lion dozens of time on three different Macs, clean installs and upgrades, and they all have had these issues.

Were all of those installs done from one and the same, original Install Lion.app download?

If so, try redownloading a new installer from the app store.

Reply

Answer 4

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Jan 29, 2012 12:18 AM in response to softwater

Were all of those installs done from one and the same, original Install Lion.app download?

No, multiple downloads. BRs have been filed, no solutions yet.

Reply

Answer 5

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Jan 31, 2012 12:56 AM in response to David Yeh

Example of icon weirdness, bottom two should be Firewire:

Move the lower icon a little and it updates:

Another example one icon is missing:

Move the lower icon a little and the icon appears:

Doesn't do it every time, it's intermittent.

Reply

Answer 6

David Yeh Author

Level 1

106 points

Jan 31, 2012 4:01 AM in response to Lanny

Yup, that's exactly what I'm describing.

Reply

Answer 7

David Yeh Author

Level 1

106 points

Jan 31, 2012 4:35 PM in response to David Yeh

I also notice if you rename a file, say MyDoc.txt, even without changing the extension, its icon disappears for a second, and then comes back. That in and of itself is slightly annoying, but I didn't notice this in prior versions of OS X (10.5 at least, I skipped over 10.6 when I bought a new computer). It does perhaps suggest a different mechanism of fetching icons, and maybe with all the constant searching for an icon, it fails every now and then and Lion just puts up a generic icon. Maybe.

Reply

Answer 8

Aug 2, 2012 12:07 PM in response to Lanny

I know this thread is 7 months old, but has anyone found a solution to this problem? I'm running OS X 10.7.4 with all updates on a Early 2011 MBP quad-core. I have the exact same problem- sometimes, all I get is the name of the folder. Move it, and the icon updates with the correct picture.

Reply

Answer 9

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Aug 2, 2012 2:00 PM in response to Richard Van Nostrand

Apple responded that it suspected that it was caused by using Dropbox and suggested deleting all traces of the application, including its DropboxHelperTools located in the Library folder.

They referred to Dropbox as a haxie.

Reply

Answer 10

David Yeh Author

Level 1

106 points

Aug 2, 2012 2:56 PM in response to Lanny

Well, I'm not using Dropbox and have this issue so it's not just that. I"ve pretty much just accepted it like a bunch of other little niggling details of Lion like random changes in view mode/window sizes/etc. Maybe some of them are fixed in Mountain Lion.

Reply

Answer 11

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Aug 2, 2012 3:19 PM in response to David Yeh

Yes, removing DropBox didn't fix it for me either. It does seem to be less of a problem with Mountain Lion. However all during the process, Dropbox has had many revisions. I'm currently using version 1.5.10.

The idea is that problem was involved with the process that Dropbox uses to add the little green changeable status symbols on the lower left edge of the icons.

Reply