Blank File Icons

Question

Blank File Icons

Two of my five Mac OS X accounts are showing blank file icons for some files. The Get Info window also shows a blank icon. Note this is not the generic application icon, but rather a totally white icon.

I can still open those files with the intended application.

I tried deleting these files and rebooting. This fixed some of the blank file icons, but not all of them:

user's/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist

/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

This only occurs on some accounts, so it appears to be account specific rather than system wide.

Any idea how to fix this?

Thanks.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 28, 2015 6:12 PM

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Answer 1

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Dec 28, 2015 7:32 PM in response to Richard Riegner

It may be LaunchServices. Launch Terminal and copy & paste this at the prompt...

Launch /Utilities/Terminal and copy & paste this entire line... (this rebuilds your launch services caches)

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.fram ework/

Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Then press return. Wait until terminal returns to the command line. Quit Terminal. After that, log out and back in or restart. Let us know

EDIT: For some reason there was a space in "frameworks", in the preview it was OK, but not in the reply, so I just made it right.

For some reason the software is fighting me pls remove the space before entering in Terminal.

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Answer 2

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Dec 28, 2015 7:48 PM in response to Richard Riegner

.

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Answer 3

Dec 28, 2015 8:02 PM in response to macjack

Thanks for the suggestion.

Unfortunately the blank icons are still there on the same two accounts.

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Answer 4

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Dec 28, 2015 8:30 PM in response to Richard Riegner

In associating documents with applications, Finder™ employs Launch Services. Launch Services uses several files to associate documents with applications and vice versa. If these files become corrupted, the following problems can occur:

The wrong application is launched when double-clicking a file.
Multiple copies of a single application appear in the Open With menu for a given document.
Incorrect icons appear on files, folders, or other objects.

It may be that the code I gave you had a space where it shouldn't have been, or else it may not be a launch services issue.

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Answer 5

Dec 28, 2015 10:44 PM in response to macjack

Thanks for your help.

I noticed the extra space in the command path and removed it as noted in your updated post.

It seems strange that only two of my five accounts see this problem and that no one else is seeing the same problem. Either this problem has carrier over unnoticed from previous Mac OS releases on my iMac or this problem is new to El Capitan.

If there is some kind of icon-related corruption specific to these accounts I hope someone can point me to a fix.

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Answer 6

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Dec 28, 2015 10:53 PM in response to Richard Riegner

You might try renaming them and adding the proper file extension( i.e. Apple Image to Apple image.jpeg) or whatever file extension that file type takes.

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Answer 7

Dec 28, 2015 11:46 PM in response to macjack

Thanks for your continued help.

Yes, changing the file's extension corrected the problem. In some cases, I changed the extension to something else and then changed it back to get the correct icon. In other cases, changing it back caused the blank icon to return. Then selecting an apparent correct extension corrected the icon.

Here are some of the file extension changes I made in case this is of help to others:

Video

-------

.m4v -> .mov -> .mp4

.MP4 -> mov -> .mp4

Audio

-------

none -> .mp3

.m4a -> .mp3

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