DarkSerge Posted January 30, 2008 Share Posted January 30, 2008 Recently the icons in my system tray on the taskbar are having troubles loading correctly. The only way I have found to fix it is to use system restore to an earlier point. The programs that use the icons load fine, but when things aren't working right only 2 or 3 icons load at random after startup. One startup might load the gmail and antivirus tray icons. The next restart might only load the sound icon and the firewall icon. It seems random on which icons it chooses.As of now I've got everything loaded because I just went to a system checkpoint in system restore.The first time it did this was about 5 weeks ago after a power outage. I figured the sudden and improper shutdown caused the problems, and fixed it with a system restore.This morning I restarted my computer (no reason, just a routine restart) and the icons again suddenly only started loading 2 at random. I did a system restore and fixed it. Then the adobe flash player wanted to update itself, so after that was done I gave it another restart and the problem came back.So apparently something is not quite right. I don't think it's the flash player since the first problem was something completely different. It seems something isn't right, and although I've got it going fine right now, who knows what'll trigger it next and when. I really don't want to have to spend time running system restore every time it happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted January 30, 2008 Share Posted January 30, 2008 TweakUI or XP PowerTools has the ability to rebuild the icons without having to do a restore.However, it sounds like you may have a bad area on the drive, or the drive may be failing.Have you done an Error Check on the system partion (C: in most cases)? It does it on a reboot. May have to fix some errors on the drive and then all will be well.If these things don't fix it, maybe someone else will have an idea other than a drive replacement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guitar Man Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 It could be a number of reasons that cause this type of erratic behaviour. reducing the number of startup apps from running at OS boot time would diminish the possibility of these hangs. It would also speed up your boot time to a usable desktop state (where you can start to run apps and do routine tasks).- How many systray icons do you normally have lined up on a successful startup ?- How many of these do you absolutely need to run automatically ? Have you considered paring the number down to only the real-time scanning agents (such as a/v, f/w, malware scanners, etc) and leaving the others on a manual call-up when required ?- What (or how) is your layered protection setup at present ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted January 31, 2008 Author Share Posted January 31, 2008 I routinely do disk checks at startup, so I don't think there are any drive errors. I haven't tried TweakUI's rebuild icons, but if it happens again, I will try that first.On a successful startup, there are 7 icons in the tray:AVG AntivirusComodo FirewallVolume/SoundLogitech SetPoint (for my wireless mouse and keyboard)Gmail notifyNintendo WiFiand last the "Safely remove hardware" iconI try to limit my startup and background applications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted January 31, 2008 Share Posted January 31, 2008 Is this your secondary system in your profile? Is the memory maxed out? If not, you might want to add more memory to the system too when you can. That would also help all these things.With all the security programs, you really need all the RAM you can get in there. If it's maxed out, you might want to try a different Firewall. Comodo is pretty hoggy for a firewall. And in the free version as noted on Scot's Newsletter Blog, it doesn't afford the leakproof functions of a firewall. I am liking the new Online Armour that Scot talked about. I was looking for a replacement for ZA Free which can't be updated on Win2K to the current version.Online Armour does a very nice job. Not sure it's all that more lightweight, but it's hard to say with that Win2K box cuz it only has 256MB RAM and is pretty sluggish. But gets the job done. I REALLY need more RAM in there too. I can go to 512MB in that computer and I really need to do that. I can get away with 512MB on Win2K but on WinXP with all the security programs and other USB, and peripheral items that we all like, 1GB is really minimum if the computer will go to that. 2GB is apparently the sweetspot for WinXP. Vista, well you really want 4GB if at all possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted February 1, 2008 Share Posted February 1, 2008 Sometimes some icons aren't showing in my tray (2K does not hide icons like XP) and yet the programs are running.Check device manager to see if the programs are, in fact running, just not appearing. I haven't figured out why sometimes some of the icons don't show,If your programs are running, obviously it isn't just a glitch in the OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted February 1, 2008 Author Share Posted February 1, 2008 (edited) This is on the main system in my profile, the Windows XP system. This XP system has 2 GB of RAM. My secondary system, the Windows 2000 one, is basically a paper weight with backup files and occasionally used for wireless internet.When I have icon load problems, the programs the icons represent are still present and running. The only problem is the icon loading, not the programs themselves loading. The annoying part is that some programs (or at least the firewall) I can't find a way to get to the program settings or controls without that icon.(small note: i'm going to post in another topic about firewall, i'm thinking of changing cause comodo isn't friendly to the nintendo wifi connection) Edited February 1, 2008 by DarkSerge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted February 1, 2008 Share Posted February 1, 2008 Dark Serge, rather than reboot, if I need to see the icon because I have to configure something, I close the process in Task Manager then launch the program from the program list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted February 1, 2008 Author Share Posted February 1, 2008 A simple reboot doesn't fix the problem anyway. That's not a bad idea, at least for when I need access if the icon problems come up again. Things are fine at the moment, and it's only happened twice, about a month or so apart. So for now I'm just gathering suggestions and such in the case it happens again. Sometimes it seems this thing just does random things on it's own. Maybe it gets bored of me and wants to stir things up a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tushman Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 (edited) I had the same problem a few years ago when I swapped out the hard drive in my XP system. There is a specific key in the windows registry with binary data which keeps a history of your icons in the system tray. When the data within it becomes corrupt - you'll see the exact kind of symptoms you've described. There's a VBS file that I downloaded which effectively cured the problem for me. I can't recall where I found it but I think it was on Kelly's Korner.I found the link for you. Scroll down to the section where it reads "Cleaning up the registry". There's a download link for the registry file. Afterwards, double click it to merge it into your registry. Edited February 2, 2008 by Tushman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted February 2, 2008 Author Share Posted February 2, 2008 I found the link for you.What is the link?Thank you for the information. I was hoping somebody would eventually see this who came across similiar problems and found a solution.Any opinions on this information? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Hello,Out of curiosity, if you delete the hidden GDIPFONTCACHEV1.DAT and ICONCACHE.DB files from %USERPROFILE%\Local Files\Application Data\ directory and then restart the system, does the problem still occur?Regards,Aryeh Goretsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tushman Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 Sorry about that DarkSerge, here's the link:http://winhlp.com/node/16From the section "Cleaning up the registry"=================================The following text contains links to registry setting files, which, except for the first one, are a bit stronger than the straight Ostuni workaround. If you want to check what they do before actually applying them, you can right-click on the link and elect to save the file to your hard disk. Then you can open it with a text editor like the Windows notepad editor and see what they do.After two emails (see emails from Mark Medrano and Ingo Schupp below), the suspicion grows that the PastIconsStream registry entry can grow beyond proportions and hinder the systray icons. The solution is to click on systray_cleanup.reg confirm the execution, then confirm the registry change, reboot your computer and test.These registry entries can safely be deleted, because Windows automatically recreates them after the next two reboots. By the way, this registry file does about the same as running systray.reg and then systray_undo.reg (see below).2007-01-16 – Thanks to Haris J. S. for the following information: This and the fixes below reset the inactive icons timers, so for some time like a week or two there will be no inactive icons. They will come back later on their own.=================================== Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted February 3, 2008 Author Share Posted February 3, 2008 Hello,Out of curiosity, if you delete the hidden GDIPFONTCACHEV1.DAT and ICONCACHE.DB files from %USERPROFILE%\Local Files\Application Data\ directory and then restart the system, does the problem still occur?Regards,Aryeh GoretskyI don't know, I'll have to try that if I have problems again.I'm hoping not to have any issues again, but since I don't trust computers, I'll be sure to save all this information given to me. Thanks everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tushman Posted February 3, 2008 Share Posted February 3, 2008 I don't know, I'll have to try that if I have problems again.I'm hoping not to have any issues again, but since I don't trust computers, I'll be sure to save all this information given to me. Thanks everyone.The registry fix provided in that article is very safe to use. I've used it before and it works fine - if you search on Google - all the other suggestions refer to the same registry fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSerge Posted February 13, 2008 Author Share Posted February 13, 2008 Just this morning I restarted my computer after a Windows Update and my icons didn't load fully again. I think the problem is initiated by a software-based restart. If I manually restart it by clicking the commands myself, nothing bad happens. If I let software restart it after an update or something, the icons don't load.I fixed the problem this time by deleting the files GDIPFONTCACHEV1.DAT and ICONCACHE.DB files from the %USERPROFILE%\Local Files\Application Data\ directory and then restarting the computer myself.If the problem happens again, I'll go to the registry fix from a previous post, I bookmarked the site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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