icons in dock replaced with generic icons

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Level 1

7 points

icons in dock replaced with generic icons

In Sierra 10.12.6 migrated from one Mac to another - nice and easy. But 2 icons are replaced with generic system icons. The programs retain their original icons in Launcher; and they run from the dock. But if I delete them from the Dock and drag them to the dock again the generic icon appears. Have tried robooting, tried in terminal: killall -KILL Dock to reset, and tried going to Library Preferences in Finder and removing com.apple.doc.plist; this resets the whole dock; if I drag the program from Launcher - the icon still goes back to the generic icon...

MacBook (Retina,12-inch,2017), macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Sep 27, 2017 7:20 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

ljm907

Level 1

9 points

Dec 12, 2017 7:54 PM in response to kris.input

I ran into this problem with my MacBook Pro when I upgraded to 10.13.1 and actually just got done solving this problem with the help of someone from tech support! It's quite an easy fix. All you have to do is restart the computer on safe mode and then restart it again normally.

1) Restart your computer

2) As soon as you heard the reboot sound, press and hold the "Shift" key.

3) Log into your computer as per usual. (The tech noted that some computers will say "Safe Mode" somewhere on the screen to let you know, but in my case, there was nothing to indicate that I was on safe mode aside from everything being super slow. Safe mode usually causes your computer to be slower because some software features are disabled.)

4) Stare at the desktop for a little while... about 30 seconds or so.

5) Restart the computer normally.

And that's it! All my icons are correct now! (:

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Sep 27, 2017 9:37 AM in response to kris.input

You need to look in your user Library/Applications Support/Dock for the .db. Use the Finder “Go To Folder” command. Enter ~/Library/Applications Support/Dock. Move the .db to your desktop.

Then try a dock reset.

Applications/Utilities/Terminal enter the command

killall Dock

Log out/in test. If it works okay, delete the .db from the desktop.

If the Dock is the same, return the .db to where you got them from, overwriting the newer ones.

If you prefer to make your user library permanently visible, go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Learned from leonie.

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Answer 3

gbsales

Level 1

20 points

Nov 9, 2017 7:57 AM in response to kris.input

This is what worked for me.

Open the Finder. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder
Type or copy paste the following:
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder
Click Go then move the Cache.db file to the Trash.
Restart your Mac.

At first I though it failed because the icons were still generic but after re-launching the apps with generic icons the correct image was restored.

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Answer 4

kris.input Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 28, 2017 3:36 PM in response to Eric Root

No joy Eric,

2 .db files: desktoppicture and a long hex string. Renamed both with .bak extension.

After "killall -KILL Dock", desktoppicture.db was rebuilt.

Kept the Dock layout, replaced the screen background...

On reboot the bad icons were still present in the Dock.
(Removed the icon and tried dragging the (good) program icon from Launcher;

just continued to show a generic icon again when placed in the Dock.)

Thank you, Kris

BTW, in Sierra it was Application Support (not plural)...

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