Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

chrisutley · Jan 2, 2004, 12:15 PM

My icons for various apps our messed up. I am getting application icons on documents, and document icons on disk images. It seems to be slowly getting worse. It started out with 1 icon that was messed up, now I have 3.

Is there some equivalent to rebuilding the desktop, that might rebuild the relationships and correct this?

typoon · Jan 2, 2004, 12:18 PM

There are apps that allow you to clear the .DS Store files in OS X also you could run Disk Warrior and TTP4 as well as reparing permissions and deleting system Cache with these 3rd party programs like Mac Pilot or other freeware ones.

SupahCoolX · Jan 2, 2004, 01:38 PM

This is a common issue in Panther. A restart will get everything back to normal. I'm surprised Apple hasn't fixed this yet...

chrisutley · Jan 2, 2004, 07:57 PM

Actually one restart didn't solve the problem in my case. I deleted the system cache and then restarted again and everything is back to normal. Thanks for the info guys.

OS X has been so super stable for me, I didn't realize how little I knew about fixing stuff like this.

bergy · Jan 2, 2004, 10:14 PM

For general upkeep ...

Macaroni ... just set it and forget it.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9633
Next version will also clear caches.

Macaroni is a tool which handles regular maintenance for Mac OS X's Unix core. Normally these tasks run on a regular schedule, in the middle of the night. However if you don't leave your Mac on all night, they never run. Your Mac won't wake from sleep to handle this. Macaroni solves this problem. If a scheduled maintenance task is not run when it's normally scheduled, Macaroni automatically ensures that it's run at the next opportunity, whenever the Mac is on. Repairs permissions also, on a weekly basis.

chabig · Jan 2, 2004, 10:37 PM

I too, like Macaroni.

Chris

ImpishLM · Jan 3, 2004, 06:10 PM

My icons for various apps our messed up. I am getting application icons on documents, and document icons on disk images. It seems to be slowly getting worse. It started out with 1 icon that was messed up, now I have 3.

Is there some equivalent to rebuilding the desktop, that might rebuild the relationships and correct this?

Also, I recommend that you get Disk Warrior 3.0, a hard disk utility that works on all directories. DW has resolved all finder problems that have cropped up for me.

nforcer · Jan 3, 2004, 08:21 PM

Quitting the Finder (you can add the Quit menu to it using Tinkertool) and restarting it by clicking on it in the Dock usually fixes most icon issues. Alternatively, Force Quitting should also work.

Trashing Root > Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices.6B.csstore and trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist and restarting usually fixes any icon or document app association problems if that is your problem. These files are created on restart.

Terri · Jan 3, 2004, 08:25 PM

Why do we still have desktop files at the root of our drives?

I've tried deleting them and they come right back when I restart. I'm not running Classic and not contented to any pre-Mac OS X machines.

I know that Mac OS X doesn't use them, but it seems on insisting on creating them.

nforcer · Jan 3, 2004, 08:34 PM

Originally posted by Terri:
Why do we still have desktop files at the root of our drives?

I've tried deleting them and they come right back when I restart. I'm not running Classic and not contented to any pre-Mac OS X machines.

I know that Mac OS X doesn't use them, but it seems on insisting on creating them.

I don't know. I've wondered about some of the invisible files at the root of our drives for a while now. One day I was testing an installation of X and decided to force remove all invisible files at the root that I could. Bad idea, as it would not boot off the volume after that point.

So I don't think they do nothing. But it certainly is annoying when browsing the root of your drive thru the terminal or some other app that can reveal invisible files.