Chrome Bookmarks Question

[Osaban]

On one of my XP machines, after starting it, the bookmarks icon 'Other bookmarks' visible on the bookmarks bar of Chrome disappeared with all bookmarks. I've never experienced such an event, and I'm the sole user.

Not a serious loss as I can import my bookmarks from another machine, but nevertheless begging for an explanation.

XP Home SP3, Sandboxie, Shadow Defender (was not on when it happened).

Any ideas? Thanks

[HKEY1952]

Originally Posted by Osaban

On one of my XP machines, after starting it, the bookmarks icon 'Other bookmarks' visible on the bookmarks bar of Chrome disappeared with all bookmarks. I've never experienced such an event, and I'm the sole user.

Not a serious loss as I can import my bookmarks from another machine, but nevertheless begging for an explanation.

XP Home SP3, Sandboxie, Shadow Defender (was not on when it happened).

Any ideas? Thanks

Icons are stored in the database file IconCache.db as shortcuts to the orginal Icon.
Icons on the Desktop and elswhere throught Microsoft Windows point to the IconCache.db to display the Icon.
There is one IconCache.db file for each User Account in Microsoft Windows.
The path to IconCache.db is: Documents and Settings/User Account/Local Settings/Application Data/IconCache.db

Boot into Safe Mode,through the Administrator Account, not your Administrative Account, and in the User Account
where Google Chrome is installed, delete the IconCache.db file.

Reboot back into the User Account where Google Chrome is installed. Should the Bookmarks Icon still not show in
Google Chrome, import the Bookmarks again.

Sometimes the IconCache.db becomes corrupted for any number of reasons. Deleting the IconCache.db file forces
Microsoft Windows to rebuild the database file and fresh shortcut Icons are populated into the IconCache.db file.

Deleting the IconCache.db file is harmless because the database file only exists shortcuts to the orginal Icon and
the orginal Icon is in no way involved in this deletion process. By default Microsoft Windows is programed to
create/recreate the IconCache.db file on reboot or startup if the database file does not exist.

Whenever there are missing Icons, wrong Icons, slow loading Icons, disappearing Icons, skewed Icons, deleting the
IconCache.db file in the respective Microsoft Windows User Account will resolve the problem.

On occations, after Microsoft Windows rebuilds the IconCache.db file, one may notice that some Icons display an
default generic Icon instead of the orginal Icon. The default generic Icon is displayed because there exists no
pointer to the IconCache.db file. Simply double clicking on that Icon to execute its parent will create the pointer
to the IconCache.db file.


EDIT: spelling/completeness


HKEY1952

[Osaban]

HKEY1952 thanks for your detailed reply.

I believe your solution is for disappearing icons and something to remember when that happens. In my case the icon disappeared as the whole bookmarks folder disappeared. Yesterday I googled my problem and I was surprised by the number of people who had run in the same problem. Google doesn't seem to know why this happens (it happens only to Chrome) and offers some workarounds which didn't fix my problem.

From now on I will have a backup folder in my documents to speed up the recovery if that happens again. Obviously if this problem becomes recurrent, I might drop Chrome altogether. For the record, I heard something similar happening when the OS is virtualized, except at the time I was not using my virtualizer.