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Firefox shortcut pinned to the taskbar becomes blank page after update.

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I'm using Firefox (77.0.1) as my default and primary web browser on Windows 10 Version 1909 KB4497165.

Every time Firefox runs an automatic update, the pinned shortcut in my taskbar becomes a blank page icon. It is also unusable, saying the application has been moved or deleted. This has happened many times (with every update over the last few years). Clearing the icon cache does nothing to prevent this from happening in the future.

It is not difficult to restore the taskbar icon. The blank page icon must be deleted, and then I must navigate to the location of the Mozilla Firefox folder under Program Files (x86). There I can find the firefox.exe file and pin a new shortcut to the taskbar. Everything will then work fine until the next Firefox update.

Is there something about the update process that recreates the firefox.exe file making it break the pinned taskbar icon? Does anyone else share this repeated problem? I have no idea if there's a way to change the update process so it does not happen, but I appreciate any information.

Thank you.

I'm using Firefox (77.0.1) as my default and primary web browser on Windows 10 Version 1909 KB4497165. Every time Firefox runs an automatic update, the pinned shortcut in my taskbar becomes a blank page icon. It is also unusable, saying the application has been moved or deleted. This has happened many times (with every update over the last few years). Clearing the icon cache does nothing to prevent this from happening in the future. It is not difficult to restore the taskbar icon. The blank page icon must be deleted, and then I must navigate to the location of the Mozilla Firefox folder under Program Files (x86). There I can find the firefox.exe file and pin a new shortcut to the taskbar. Everything will then work fine until the next Firefox update. Is there something about the update process that recreates the firefox.exe file making it break the pinned taskbar icon? Does anyone else share this repeated problem? I have no idea if there's a way to change the update process so it does not happen, but I appreciate any information. Thank you.
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All Replies (1)

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Hello guy's The only other possible solutions that I can think of are:

A) Get the Thumbnail & Icon Rebuilder tool from here:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/icon-cache-rebuilder-for-windows-10

This will allow you to target only the icon cache and clear out any possible corruption.

B) Run Disk Cleanup and be sure to check the Thumbnails tickbox.

This will purge all of your icons and thumbnails from their caches. If you have a lot of photos, videos, etc. they will rebuild when you view them and it could take some time.

Either way, I would Unpin the icon from the taskbar and delete any desktop shortcut to Firefox beforehand.

The Rebuilder tool will offer to reboot your computer when it's done. Allow it to.

And you should reboot your computer after running Disk Cleanup if you choose that option.