I use various tools and add-ons for P3Dv4, for which I have created shortcuts on my desktop. However, some of the shortcuts have become blank out of nowhere at different times. If I right-click on a shortcut to access the properties, I can see the proper symbol in there. However, the shortcut itself is blank. Check the following image. Did this happen to anyone else, and do you know what the solution is to restore the symbols?  Advice would be appreciated.

Edited November 14, 20205 yr by Afterburner

You probably need to rebuild the Windows icon cache.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-reset-icon-cache-database-windows-10

6 hours ago, Afterburner said:

I use various tools and add-ons for P3Dv4, for which I have created shortcuts on my desktop. However, some of the shortcuts have become blank out of nowhere at different times. If I right-click on a shortcut to access the properties, I can see the proper symbol in there. However, the shortcut itself is blank. Check the following image. Did this happen to anyone else, and do you know what the solution is to restore the symbols?  Advice would be appreciated.

On my system it used to affect desktop and task bar icons. Rebuilding the icon cache per Bob's suggestion always fixed them for me, but they'd occasionally go blank again. For whatever reason it hasn't happened in a long time...maybe updated Win 10 ver. fixed it? Of course now that I say it hasn't happened recently it most certainly will happen soon!

7 hours ago, w6kd said:

You probably need to rebuild the Windows icon cache.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-reset-icon-cache-database-windows-10

Thank you for the link!  Unfortunately, the outlined steps didn't help me restore the icons despite trying it twice and restarting my PC two times. I will have to keep looking.

The text mentions that the phenomenon happens if the icon cache database gets corrupted. However, I made a fresh install of Windows 10 just two weeks ago, so my system is very fresh!  Is it that big of a problem to fix this small issue?  Come on, Microsoft, I can't remember having this problem in Windows XP or even Windows 98! 😬

No problem with Win 7 or 10. Doesn't need fixing on my install.

If you have a large number of icons, it may also be possible that you are running out of icon cache space in Windows.

Assuming you're using Win 10, you can increase that by using regedit to edit this registry setting:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer 

Create (or edit if it's already there) a string/REG_SZ value titled "Max Cached Icons" (it's case sensitive also).  Set the value to 4096 (or 8192 if you need more).  The default is 500.

The usual warnings and cautions apply here--don't mess with your registry unless you know what you're doing, and it's always wise to keep a recent system backup "just in case"

What helped me to solve my problem is to right-click on a blank icon, going to "Properties", clicking on "Change Icon", selecting the displayed icon from the list, clicking on OK and then Apply.

All is good now. But it's still embarrassing for Windows 10 to have this problem.

19 hours ago, Afterburner said:

All is good now. But it's still embarrassing for Windows 10 to have this problem.

This has plagued Windows for forever. I don’t know why it does it either but the method you described is the easiest fix. Or delete and recreate the affected icons. Just irritating. It is not an icon cache issue as far as `I am aware as it can affect a system that has almost no software. Don’t use CCleaner as those “cleaner” programs can mess with icon cache and break links.

Have you tried: click on the desktop and press F5?

34 minutes ago, SteveW said:

Have you tried: click on the desktop and press F5?

Yes, but it didn't work.

I suppose you are saying that even after recreating those icons it happens again at some time, so the problem is unresolved?

Perhaps there is a difference with those apps the icon goes blank for, does it always affect those same shortcuts or do any of them change to blank? The desktop is an Explorer window, It could be that, for example, some process is holding up Explorer during the render of the desktop; files installed on another drive, permissions to a folder containing the icons are unresolved, an internet address is unreachable for something like a backup.

...so to put it another way: some time in the future you boot up the PC as usual, and some apps, or files related to them, can't be reached temporarily and their icons are updated with the blank image which remains until you manually set up the icons.

In my case (again, the OS was only two weeks old, so I don't buy the icon database corruption or having too many icons argument), the shown icons became blank out of nowhere after the start of my PC. Then I performed the steps described in the link posted by w6kd, but it didn't help even after right-clicking on the desktop and clicking on "refresh". Not only were the shortcuts blank, but also the icons of the original exe files in their respective folders (ORBX Vector configurator, ADE and Lorby's SI Add-on configurator). However, double clicking on the blank shortcuts opened the respective program without any problems. Only after performing the steps that I described in my last post did the icons return. 

This also happened to my system in the past every now and then, but not so soon (and only with the Vector configurator). It could happen in the future, I guess - hopefully not. I wish Windows would offer a simpler solution of restoring the iconcache database than described in the article.

Agreed. It might be something internet related outside of your system or some problem of AV or Malware security checking. Once you've booted up fully the system works normally, but the icons have been lost. I've not seen it happen on a pure Windows install, usually only after other items or apps have been added.