Favicons randomly disappear in Opera 9.50

Favicons randomly disappear in Opera 9.50

Anyone else experiencing that? It happens randomly, I can't figure how or why. As I surf, icons disappear and I have to right - click and select properties and ok in order to make them re-appear.

This happens with any skin.

I am having the same problem.

Worse than that, magic wand forgot my login, so I had to set up a new one.

And the "I agree to these terms" button" didnt show. So I had to use Firefox to complete my subscription to this forum to post this!

Incredible!

Yeah I've had a similar problem. and it's been discussed in the beta testing forum http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=234361
the problem is we don't have any way of reproducing the bug so we the devs aren't able to figure it out

Originally posted by Zhoey:

the problem is we don't have any way of reproducing the bug so we the devs aren't able to figure it out

Install 9.5 over 9.27. Worked for me.

Originally posted by LutherBlissett:

Originally posted by Zhoey:

the problem is we don't have any way of reproducing the bug so we the devs aren't able to figure it out

Install 9.5 over 9.27. Worked for me.

This bug IS in 9.5, better yet; it's NOT in 9.27 for me.

I have the same problem in Opera 9.5 64 bit for Linux, however I haven't seen the problem in 32 bit version.

What's annoying is that favicon disappear from personal bar, if I go to proprieties of the link I see the favicon there, if I move the link in the personal bar the favicon reappears.

....Funny thing is that never happened to me in a previous version...It's very annoying...I suddenly find myself wondering "where did my favourite site go?"


By the way, Using Vista x64 (if that makes any difference) and it was a CLEAN install.

Originally posted by LutherBlissett:

Originally posted by Zhoey:

the problem is we don't have any way of reproducing the bug so we the devs aren't able to figure it out

Install 9.5 over 9.27. Worked for me.

It's happening to me with a clean install.

Happening here too on XP SP3, especially noticable on personal bar items.

Has a bug report already been filed?

Originally posted by Zhoey:

Yeah I've had a similar problem. and it's been discussed in the beta testing forum http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=234361
the problem is we don't have any way of reproducing the bug so we the devs aren't able to figure it out

That's definitely a different issue. This is the correct one:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=229268

It's been on the woodpile of issues for a couple months now, but it's a minor one by comparison to some of them.

Ok, I think I have a pattern here. The disappearance is not as random as I thought at first.

It seems to me that sites I VISITED A FEW MINUTES ago tend to lose their favicon.

For example, I open opera, visit 3-4 sites. Then some icon of those sites is bound to disappear in the next few minutes. While favicons of sites I haven't visited in a while are fine.

Yes, see the other thread. It doesn't happen until you visit the sites. What's random about it is which sites show the problem, though I've found since that Opera is consistent once it makes its choice.

...

It happens all the time, it is starting to get on my nerves, esp since it's the 1st time I've experienced this since Opera introduced favicons...

Do you see these problems using older (9.2x) skins, or just with the new skin?

Seb

It started happening with build 9903 in April, so it's unrelated to the new skin.

Yeah, it happens with ANY skin....

It even happends in 9.51.

Very anoying.

As far i can see it only happends to icons/links whos been downloaded. Gmail's icon disappear but my how to geek link icon its blank since install and it dont disappear.

...........I really don't get it how this could be so messed up, esp when it never happened before ( never seen it personally in any version )

The issue does seem to have proved elusive enough to the dev's that it's managed to once again seep through to the current build [10063]. As far as probable causes go, most of what I've read pertaining to this topic alleges that the problem arrises when navigating between sites in rapid succession -- hence when attempting to pull up the site whose icon is in question before the previosuly-visited site has finished loading. At least this is how I'm able to recreate the problem on my end. E.g. if you browse to eHow, then to dogpile when eHow has loaded <100% of the home page, the favicon for dogpile will sometimes (the puzzling aspect) be improperly displayed or not at all. Also, in my experience, deleting the respective icon file from C:\...[USER]\[LOCAL_SETTINGS]\[APP_DATA]\Opera\Opera\profile\images then reloading the problematic site did not have an effect (closed Opera and re-opened). Nor did clearing all private data from the Tools menu. I agree with rseiler... to the extent that I can ascertain, this must be an issue that's just been given low priority compared to other more pressing bugs.

Originally posted by Xmaera:

As far as probable causes go, most of what I've read pertaining to this topic alleges that the problem arrises when navigating between sites in rapid succession -- hence when attempting to pull up the site whose icon is in question before the previosuly-visited site has finished loading.

I think you were reading some old threads: that's the way it would happen with the last iteration of the problem, which was quite a long time ago, back in the days between 9.00 and 9.10 (thread) in particular, though before as well. Well, the icons wouldn't disappear then, at least that I recall, but they would acquire the wrong favicon.

This iteration of the problem started just with 9.5 (9903), and it definitely doesn't require any rapid navigation here. You may be seeing some remnant of the old problem, though I really hope not because we don't need it back.

Hmmmm, I suppose the culprit could be some remnant from a prior version; I first started using Opera around v8.?? and have just been upgrading since. In the not-too-distant past (maybe around v9.00 like you mentioned), I'd ran into the issue you're describing where the icons get 'swapped' or something, however it's been several builds ago since that last happened to me. The problem as it manifests itself on my system seems, as far as I can tell, like it is triggered by the scenario where pages don't get the chance to load in their entirety before directing Opera to another site. If this is in fact due to some leftover file(s), then I dunno if perhaps reconstructing my profile might help with the problem so as to rid my opera6.ini of possible obsolete entries... Just dunno.

@Xmaera, just to make you feel better, I can report now that for the first time since what seems like 2006, I managed to see the *old* wrong-favicon problem we were just talking about, and I wasn't even trying to do it, it just happened. I don't really know if it happened in the way that it used to (similar to what you're talking about), since I wasn't paying attention, but right now I'm looking at the green icon for Hulu on my Personal Bar on a bookmark icon for which there is no favicon (it should be, and always has been, the generic default icon).

So it seems that we do have multiple favicon issues with us again, confirmed.

You're such a jinx!

While I certainly find no schadenfreude in your having encountered a similar if not the same predicament, the notion that I may not be going mad after all is reaffirming... cheers anyhow mate

A possible lead may of been found with some messing around in the thread about the lost search icons:
My search engines favicons are gone

Most of this was spotted by dude09 - I don't want to nick credit.

Skim down past the first few posts until you find "dude09" towards the bottom. Look for his Red Questionmark Avatar....
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=2629160

He noticed how to get his Search Icons back by just going to the website URL, and not the Document URL (i.e. visit http://search.ebay.co.uk/ to put it's icon back...)

And then a little bit more messing around with other forumites, we have also sussed out how the icon image system now works. (And the fact it is now in a DIFFERENT location to v9.27)

Maybe someone here can now take those thoughts and do something with them?

(Meanwhile - I look up at my 30 or so Personal Bar icons and notice three are missing. These three were all visible early. And they do have one thing in common - they have all been clicked on in the last hour. In fact, they are the ONLY icons up there that have been clicked on in that time period. This is more than coincidence.)

Sometimes an icon disappears if you mouse over it.

This isn't random - this is getting almost predictable.

I have had this PC on for a couple of hours. In that time, I have read articles on various websites. Most of these are icons on my Personal Bar or Speed Dial.

Just now, I got up to get a coffee... and returned to the PC to look up at the personal bar. Sure enough - All but one of the websites I have visited today have now lost their icons. Sites I have not visited still have icons.

I know if I now close opera, those icons will come back.

I nipped into the C:\Users\MAllen\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera\profile\images\ folder - and the icon and IDX files seem to be there.

(Weird - still can't work out how these IDX files work. www.hardocp.com.idx holds just the URL of the front page. Whereas www.google.co.uk.idx holds lots of search URLs.... Messy and weird...)

I think it's random -- or random-seeming -- in which sites decide to do this in the first place and which do not.

I regularly visit most of the sites on my toolbar, but only a couple of them will ever do this, and they're always the same ones, too. So in that sense it's predictable, but what do these sites have in common? Why just some of them?

If it's something to do with the IDX nightmare, then why is it something as simple as accessing the properties of the icon and OK'g out bring it back? Or as Adrian said, why can you sometimes just wave the cursor over an icon to make it disappear?

I think all other favicon issues (e.g. the old one where you get the wrong icon for the site, the current one involving search engine icons) can be blamed on IDX weirdness, but probably not this one.

As someone here mentioned, the easiest way to fix the favicons is just drag it slightly ( well, just holding the left mouse button for 1 sec and barely moving it works ).


I still don't understand though, how such a VISIBLE BUG could make it to a final version....

Originally posted by Neighboar:

I still don't understand though, how such a VISIBLE BUG could make it to a final version....

It's only a visible bug if the user turns on the Personal Bar like we do.

I have the opposite problem. My default home page is a file on my hard disk. But somehow it has acquired a favicon. I have nothing resembling a favicon file, so it seems to have "bled over" from somewhere else. This never happened in any previous version of Opera.

Is there an easy way to get rid of it?

@tedsimages: It may have never happened for you in previous versions, but I'm not sure how you avoided it then since it was pretty notorious. See up the thread:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=2624339

It even happened once for me with current versions, so it's not absolutely fixed but certainly rare.

You can fix it by going into your Images directory (in your local profile) and searching for the IDX/ICO file which matches either your local home page, the site that bled over, or both, and then deleting them. You'll probably be able to sort by reverse date and see it right off.

Where do I find the "Images" directory? I've looked in the profile subdirectory for Opera 9.5 in Application Data, but there's no "images" (as there is for Opera 9.27 in its profile directory under Program Files).

Vista OS:
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera\profile\images\

XP OS:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\profile\images\

May need to turn on hidden files - or just type that out in an address bar. Obviously swap "Username" for "Ted" or whatever your username is on the PC.

That's where I looked. Under "Opera\Opera95" there's no "images" directory. All the ini and dat files are there (with today's date), along with directories for keyboard, menu, mouse, sessions, skin, styles, thumbnails, toolbar, voice, and widgets. But no images. And there's nothing I could find under Program Files\Opera95 either.

I do have an "Opera\Opera" directory for 9.27. It has an images directory containing a few icons dated April 2007. Very strange.

Are you on XP or Vista? (Saves me typing everything twice)

Notice that v9.50 splits its user files between the \Application Data\ and the \Local Settings\Application Data\ folders. I think you are looking in the WRONG location if you have managed to find the images fodler from v9.27 as that is in the Application Data branch and not the Local Settings branch.

Vista OS:
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera\profile\images\

XP OS:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera\profile\images\

I'm on XP. And I indeed found the images directory (and the offending icon) under "Local Settings." The splitting seems unnecessarily complicated (and it's probably my fault that I didn't take the time to study the Opera documentation Web site and find it for myself). But I dimly remember reading somewhere that Vista requires applications to put their data in specific places, so developers of newer software have to comply with what Microsoft dictates, even for XP.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Originally posted by tedsimages:

But I dimly remember reading somewhere that Vista requires applications to put their data in specific places, so developers of newer software have to comply with what Microsoft dictates, even for XP.

Yep. That is the reason. It is what the UNIX\Linux guys have been doing for Decades. Even Mac OS X gets this right now (well, it is only Linux underneath....)

This is what the rest of us IT guys have been waiting for from Microsoft. It makes security and backup so much easier if files are kept in "sensible" places.

Just comic now that Microsoft are getting the security right, they are still getting shouted at.


Basic summary:

NOTHING should be written into the c:\Program Files\ folder. That is just for the Application's exes, dlls and unchanging settings (like the default search.ini).

CUSTOM USER settings should be kept in the C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\ folder. This is then used in an office network when users are "hot desking" and the server is humping their whole Roaming Profile between PCs across the network. This is where your most important ini files live. (BACK THIS FOLDER UP)

TEMP USER files are stored in the C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\ folder. This is where you find the Cache, and less important items like the icons.


It is very noticable that many companies are still playing "catch up" with these rules. As an Ex-System programmer, that is understandable. It's the Stoooopid bosses\marketing\etc who don't allocate time for this kind of work. So it is VERY good to see Opera getting this kind of thing correct.

Yes, I'll have to change the batch file that does backups. It backed up the profile directory under "program files\Opera", which has long been the standard advice for backing up and moving Opera installations. It works for 9.27. Even if 9.5 (and Vista) changed the location to something "correct" and "sensible," people are still going to get hurt in the transition.

But change is always good. And adapting to change makes everyone stronger and better, since that's how we learn and grow. I learned something today, Opera, about Microsoft, and particularly about the value of a supportive community.

Originally posted by tedsimages:

It backed up the profile directory under "program files\Opera",

That would of only worked if you were doing a "Single User" installation. That was a hangover from the old Win9x days. Everything stashed in the one folder (apart from those random ini files and dlls that were dumped into the Windows Folder!!! Thankfully something Opera never did....)

The whole of Opera is pretty well customisable. Most data stored as human readable text. With some work in opera:config (or hacking the ini files) most of the Opera Settings files can be moved to easier to backup locations.

Personally I shove the Cache and Mail Folders off onto separate hard drives for more efficient handling of the data. (I am a mad IT geek with a SCSI based system...) I then make sure the Application Data branch of my usersettings are included in my backups.

Right, Opera has stated that the reason they decided in December to split the profile between small stuff (mainly your INI files, CSS, Javascript, etc) and huge things like Images, Cache, indexing, etc was specifically because of roaming profiles on corporate networks. The last thing you want is 10,000 Image files and hundreds of MBs of cache and index being slung across the network.

Firefox does the same thing. If Opera had never made the change it still would have worked fine in Vista, just less efficiently for some business users. Fortunately, Opera was not one of the apps that wrote to Program Files, at least not recently.

Originally posted by rseiler:

The last thing you want is 10,000 Image files and hundreds of MBs of cache and index being slung across the network.

I rememebr working for a company with this Roaming Profile idea setup on the server. Even though I only ever sat at the same desk and logged into my (company suplied) laptop. I soon learned to move my huge music collection out of the My Music folder as it was making my logins\logouts PAINFULLY slow as that was hauled over the network each time.

I can imagine the problems that can cause with something like Opera's Cache. Good to see Opera listening to Business requests

Originally posted by mallen:

Originally posted by tedsimages:

It backed up the profile directory under "program files\Opera",

That would of only worked if you were doing a "Single User" installation. That was a hangover from the old Win9x days. Everything stashed in the one folder (apart from those random ini files and dlls that were dumped into the Windows Folder!!! Thankfully something Opera never did....)

The whole of Opera is pretty well customisable. Most data stored as human readable text. With some work in opera:config (or hacking the ini files) most of the Opera Settings files can be moved to easier to backup locations.

Personally I shove the Cache and Mail Folders off onto separate hard drives for more efficient handling of the data. (I am a mad IT geek with a SCSI based system...) I then make sure the Application Data branch of my usersettings are included in my backups.

Yep. I have a single-user installation. But there's no problem doing the backup from "Application Data," as long as I know where it is.

I rather like 9.5, but I'll keep 9.27 around until 9.51 or 9.52, when it's stable enough so that people have to find something else to complain about.

Originally posted by Neighboar:

As someone here mentioned, the easiest way to fix the favicons is just drag it slightly ( well, just holding the left mouse button for 1 sec and barely moving it works ).

I missed the earlier reference, so I tried it earlier today for the icons that had gone out in this session. Oddly enough, those same icons have not gone out again in this session. Is this a pattern? Once they're "fixed" they'll stay fixed until you restart the browser and the problem recurs? Or is this just a coincidence?

Again I am sitting here with icons missing. On my PC, the ONLY icons to dissapear are ones from pages I have opened in this session from the toolbar.

Weirdest part of the "dissapearing" icons is trying to spot a pattern as to WHEN they dissapear... and I am sure they are waiting for me to turn my back...

Here are some thoughts. Opera has been open for ages. Hours. I looked at most of those pages a while ago. Meanwhile been reading other sites. Could they have been flushed from an "icons to display" list? This list holding the icon images currently in use by opera. Opera decides it doesn't need the old icons from old pages and drops them from memory. Meanwhile the toolbar is trying to access it - and now gets nothing.

As the source code is too well written, instead of crashing on a NULL pointer or something, a blank is icon is used as a default.


OR - is it after the screen saver kicks in? I have been away for a while, and PC would of kicked to screensaver. Could that then mess up the list of icons being displayed?

As spotted earlier, the icons come back if you change the bookmark entry. Either by moving it's position on the toolbar, or OKing the properties. So that would pop it back into the list of icons for Opera to display.

Just as I was wondering if it was to do with these new IDX files... I noticed something.

I didn't realise I had the link to "B3TA" on my personal bar twice. Once with the icon and a short title, the other as just the icon. Both pointing to the exact same home page.

Earlier, when I visited B3TA, I used the icon without title. It is now this icon that is missing.

What I find of note is the other B3TA icon is fine. Opera is treating them as different images. The interesting bit is it shows that it is nothing to do with the files on the hard disk in the images folder - otherwise it would affect both images. This is therefore a bug in memory and the handling of the lists of icons.

The bug is showing on my PC only AFTER it has kicked to screensaver. (Or maybe after spending a long period hidden as minimised). So, when Opera tries to redraw the screen, it is referring to a list of icons - which is now missing some because they have been deleted due to being "old" and not needed.

I like puzzles...

I will watch some more..
I am now pretty sure it isn't Pixies...
OR - maybe if I put some peanuts on the top of the monitor the icons will be put back?

It definitely happens sans screensaver here. And I too (as of a message on Saturday) think that it's not triggered by IDX changes, as it can come and go with zero changes to that directory.

But the "wiggle" trick definitely makes them stay around indefinitely here, nonsensical but true, essentially solving the problem...until I restart the browser and the cycle repeats.

The problem seems to be fixed in latest 9.51 RC3 but I'm not sure. Again icons disappear most often when you mouse over, try that without clicking on them. Another predictable thing, icons that disappear are the one that are mostly used (but that makes sense if mousing over make them disappear).

EDIT: icons still disappear even in 9.51 rc3

This is the single most bothersome thing I've encountered with Opera in recent history, at least as far as asthetics go. Every time I install a new version, things seem to get better with the favicons at first, but it's all downhill from there. I want to say the issue with favicons has been around since version 7, in some form or another. Even now, I have favicons for sites change to that of other bookmarks (this time around the 4chan icon seems to be taking over). I actually regularly had to clear out my images folder to fix all the problems with favicons in the past.

I too am loosing the favcons at times. Leave blank spaces on the personal bar that leads to guessing game as to which disappears now. That being because Opera at times like to rearrange them for me. Right now I use a small single letter as a clue beside those effected most

This is still an issue. I have had opera since 4.0 (paid license even) and it's never been an issue. I installed 9.50 and had problems. Eventually I downgraded back to 9.27 and all was fine. Today I decide to try 9.51 and guess what...same issue. I almost forgot what the bugs were but of course hard to forget when they STILL EXIST.

If favicons keep disappearing I might as well just shut off the personal bar but that's going to really stink.

Opera...FIX THIS.

Hmm, I suddenly stopped having this issue today. Some of my icons had disappeared as they usually do, and normally I have to restart Opera to get them back. But they suddenly just appeared again. And I'm fairly certain I didn't restart Opera.
The thing I did was delete the old Opera 9.5 BETA cache folder, which I have uninstalled. So now I only have one installation of Opera, (9.52 10103).
I deleted this folder: "C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Local Settings\Application Data\Opera\Opera 9.5 Beta" and kept the normal Opera folder.
Since then I haven't had this issue :S
I haven't browsed that long though, since then, so the issue might still be there. But can anyone confirm this?

EDIT:
Oh I also deleted the Opera 9.5 BETA folder in Program Files (after uninstallation), which might also have done the trick. Not sure.