[RESOLVED] Stack docklet icons + 2 on dock missing! (blank or question mark)

Something's eating them! They're disappearing!

from WinCustomize Forums

Docks in question: ObjectDock free, RocketDock, CircleDock

Docklet: stacksdocklet v1

Also happens with: RKLauncher, Aquadock, StandaloneStacks

OS: Windows 7 Pro x64.

tl;dr:
The icons on most stacksdocklet (v1) stacks in 2 portable RocketDocks are blank. (EDIT, another restart: now ALL RocketDocks have blank icons for their stacks.)
Most icons in standalonestack are also blank.
In these stacks,  1 icon is a custom ico, 1 stack is all self-picked icons from installed EXEs, 1 stack are normal program shortcuts with their default icons.
CircleDock throws "Failed to get icon index" on startup.
They were all fine through many reboots; now it happened all of a sudden, and has persisted through 3 reboots.

The icons to launch the stacks are fine. All other dock icons are fine, be they installed or portable applications, except for RemixOS Player (an installed pre-packaged Linux VM) and WindowProcessLogger (a portable application). These are the only missing icons on a dock itself, and so are the only ones with blue questions marks instead of being blank.

StandaloneStack shows icons for:
Appetizer, AquaDock, MaxLauncher, MobyDock (can you tell I was evaluating a bunch of old docks?), ObjectDock, RadialMenu, RkLauncher, and a batch file to close StandaloneStack when the process doesn't close.

StandaloneStack is NOT showing icons for:
All 3 Rocketdocks, Cybergenic Shade (an app sandbox thing), SliderDock, StandaloneStack.

RECENT CHANGES: Uninstalled 2 Win 9x-era programs that removed "unused" shared files while uninstalling; installed lots of browsers for evaluation: SlimJet, Ghost, Maxthon, Maxthon Nitro, Midori, Sleipnir, Torch, Baidu.

I'm mainly concerned if an old application I uninstalled deleted something it shouldn't have. Is that likely? Does anyone know what could have been broken here? What I can check or do?

I'm pretty sure I'd already restarted after those uninstalls and I did NOT have this problem, but I'm not sure.

Details:

I have 3 RocketDock installations. One was a normal installation to D:\Program Files (x86) (FYI, D is a programs drive, NOT the OS drive; that is still a proper C:), set up, and then LATER I turned on the setting for portable INI so that I could install 2 more instances. RocketDocks 2 & 3 are portable installations right on the root drive folder: D:\RocketDock 2, for example.

So to be clear, all 3 RocketDocks are technically portables, but #1 was first installed normally.

Another note: I don't use stacksdocklet v2 because no matter how I change the user permissions on the RocketDock folders & its .exe, settings won't persist through reboots. I gave up.

The other listed programs are installed normally.

(EDIT, another restart: now ALL RocketDocks have blank icons for their stacks.)
Old description: Right now, only RocketDock #1 is showing its stacks properly - 2 of them. RocketDocks 2 & 3 work, but the icons are blank. The SAME folder will display just fine in RocketDock #1. The stacks in RocketDock #1 will NOT display their icons in 2 & 3.

After seeing it come up in a google search, I decided to open CircleDock. CircleDock has worked perfectly, but now a critical error on startup:

Window Title: "Assertion Failed: Abort=Quit, Retry..." etc.

Message: "Failed to Get Icon Index

At Sysimagelist.iconindex...(string filename, boolean
At Sysimagelist.iconindex (string filename, boolean...
At ImageListThumbnailGenerator.Get.JumboLargeThumbnail (string filename)
at fileops.getFileInfo...
at DockItemObject...
..."

buttons: Abort | Retry | Fail

It's a lot to type so I hope that gives some idea.

The message comes up 3 times, which I assume goes with the 3 shortcuts I have in CircleDock. Once closed, CircleDock loads, and the icons are replaced with blue question marks. Just like the other docks though, the shortcuts still work.

 

This SEEMED to be starting earlier. StandaloneStack has always shown one application in its list without an icon. I could find no logic to it. For example, when I added RocketDock to the List, RocketDock didn't have an icon. When I added a 2nd Rocketdock, the 1st one got its icon but the 2nd didn't. If anything, it seems like the 2nd-to-last program in the list would have no icon, but earlier, it was the 3rd program in the list or something. Very strange. Now it's a pretty random distribution.

Thanks.

docks
14,471 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

For me it is a wonder that StackDocklet and even RocketDock have run for so long for You. ;-) It is dated for years now and it was a question of time it became unusable.

The "unused" shared files are the problem I guess. Mostly some outdated programming libraries.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

From the RocketDock site: "Please note that [...], Windows 7 64-bit Editions, [...] are not yet supported."

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Heh, well, but other than Nexus and ObjectDock, there don't seem to be any more normal / simple / straight / mac-like dock applications that are current. I googled for articles for dock suggestions / reviews in 2017 and even those were mentioning old stuff, focusing on Rocketdock as still the main recommendation, of course.

It still works though; it's just that my stacks don't have icons, and for any missing ones on the dock I just have to add them manually into RocketDock;s little icon library thing.

Well, I posted hoping someone might know what the issue is, but if no one knows, I guess I'll just have to run sfc.exe to check system files. I'm not doing it yet because I think I'll have to re-patch the system theme file thingy.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Blank icons, eh? Did you recently install or uninstall Stardock's IconPackager?

Open the Windows Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex and see if the subkey 'IconHandler' exists. If it does, delete it then reboot.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Thanks, that's a common and top fix that comes up when you google the issue; sadly, does not apply here.

Well, everything's fine now anyway. It just seems to have happened to be working again and it has been for a week now or more. I can't say for sure, but in rare case anyone else has the issue and finds this, the ONLY suspicion I have is that it may have to do with some issue with the Windows Themes system files.

 

tl;dr: 1 theme dll was unpatched. By the time (not necessarily "after") SFC.exe did its job and ONLY restored the 3 theme files, all icons were back and no more errors. Repatching my theme files did not break anything. I am back where I started, and all is well.

I don't know if that makes any sense, someone more technical may know if this makes sense or zero sense, but all I know is that before running System File Checker (sfc.exe), I ran UniversalThemePatcher-x64 to UNPATCH so that I could eliminate those when I check the SFC logs. ONE of the dlls was NOT patched for some reason - I don't remember which.

I ran SFC, and NO files needed repair apart from the 3 theme dlls (not sure if I forgot to unpatch for some reason or if Windows still detected they had been altered).

So, I cannot be clear about the order and details of my actions, but the point is, after running SFC to restore those files to default, the icons returned.

I re-ran UniversalThemePatcher-x64 to patch all 3 dlls for my custom Windows theme, and the icons are *still* there. No problems now.

That's all I know! *shrugs*

It may sound like a clear correlation, but the number of missing icons kept fluctuating before it got resolved, but maybe this helps someone if it really is the answer.