Firefox 17 - Default blank icon on dragged and dropped shortcuts

[Guest]

Since upgrading to Firefox 17, whenever I drag and drop a shortcut from the location bar to my computer, I get a default Windows icon. If I open the shortcut in Notepad, I'll see something like this...

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=new_post&f=19
IDList=
HotKey=0
IconFile=D:\Programs\Firefox\Profile\shortcutCache\IuRVKGOyaR38sV24YdgaPw==.ico
IconIndex=0

I guess Mozilla planned to use site favicons instead of the default Firefox URL shortcut.

When I look in the shortcutCache folder, I see this...

As you can see, only 1 icon displays in Explorer. If I view them in IrfanView or edit them in IconWorkshop, I can see the favicons.

I am on Windows XP. When I remoted into my sisters computer, which runs Windows 7, I got no blank icons. Instead what happened is I got the default Firefox icon if the shortcut was dragged to the desktop(even though I had a line in the shortcut that read something like this - IconFile=D:\Programs\Firefox\Profile\shortcutCache\IuRVKGOyaR38sV24YdgaPw==.ico) . When I dragged it to a folder I had added to the taskbar that simulated the Quick Launch bar, I got the favicon of the site.

At this point I'm left to believe that Mozilla never tested Firefox 17 on an XP box.

Can everyone reading this that uses Firefox 17 as their default browser, test this and reply with your results? Please include what OS you are running. Simply drag and drop a URL from the location bar (preferebly one with a favicon) to your Quick Launch bar or Desktop.

[Sp0iLedBrAt]

It appears you're right. This PC is running Windows XP SP3.

[tomasz86]

At this point I'm left to believe that Mozilla never tested Firefox 17 on an XP box.

I'm sure that they test on XP. I'd rather think that this particular problem hasn't been noticed simply because very few people use shortcuts to websites.

Edited December 1, 2012 by tomasz86

[Guest]

Yeah, that's basically what I meant.... They didnt test this new behavior on XP.

[GrofLuigi]

Metro strikes again!

The new Internet shortcut created with FF17 is IMHO an attempt to support Windows 8 "Metro". Let's compare the structure of the ".url" created by FF17 and shortcut created with IE9 with extension ".website". Both contain more information than just URL line (different from old .url) The new .url from FF17 should create current website icon on the Win8 Start screen. However, this is not supported for .url type in older Windows and it creates empty icon on XP and favicon in a square on Vista and Win7.

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/942316

GL

Edited December 1, 2012 by GrofLuigi

[Tripredacus]

No problems of this on Windows 7. I dragged a Technet link I had in my bookmarks to the desktop and it has the correct icon.

[Guest]

Finally fixed in FF21. You need to add the browser.shell.shortcutFavicons entry in about:config. It doesn't come with it. Make it boolean and set it to false. Restart FF.

Edited May 15, 2013 by -X-