TortoiseSVN icons overlay not showing after updating to Windows 10

Question

I had been using Windows 8 and TortoiseSVN icons have been displaying properly, but after installing Windows 10 I can no longer see the icons for the files/folder status.

Solution 1

Had same issue, and was solved by running regedit, erasing some entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers and restarting. Deleting OneDrive1... enties was not permited, but I had some from Google Drive. You can also make a bakup by double-clicking in the registry directory and doing an "Export" to a file.

On Windows 10, most of the entries are used by OneDrive and you won't have permission to remove them. In order to do so, right click on the entry (Example: "OneDrive1", then click "Advanced", then click the link labled "Change" at the very top next to "Owner". This lets you change the owner. Type in your username and hit OK. Now give yourself "Full Control" and then apply it. Now you should be able to delete or rename it.

Solution 2

As in current recommended answer mentioned, you need to sort the entries of the overlay identifiers in the registry. I haven't deleted those OneDrive or GoogleDrive entries but renamed all Tortoise Folders by adding 3 spaces to bring them on top. Just restart and even with Tortoise SVN client 1.7.9 you'll see your SVN overlay icons under Windows 10 again.

Solution 3

I fixed my problems with TortoiseSVN icons not showing up in Windows 10, for the special case where my repository was on a removable drive.

There is a Tortoise setting that determines which Drive Types the icons are used with: Drives A: and B:, Removable drives, Network drives, Fixed drives, CD-ROM, RAM drives, and Unknown drives.

It was NOT a problem with the naming of the icon overlays in the Windows Registry.

The names were automatically prefixed with "1", "2", etc.

to force them (in my computer) alphabetically at the top of the list just before the OneDrive icons.

So, all of the icons were within the top 15. To get to the Tortoise settings, right click on Desktop or a folder and then choose TortoiseSVN > Settings.

In Settings, choose Icon Overlays. There'll you find the Drive Types settings.

Solution 4

You can go to:

Tortoise Settings > Icon Overlays -> Overlay Handlers

and uncheck all checkboxes, apply, then reactivate them and apply.

This will do the same thing in the registry but not manually.

Otherwise you can open the registry with the button below, and move up the keys, appending some spaces before the name.

Solution 5

Windows explorer allots 15 custom overlay icons (Windows reserves 4, so effectively only 11 overlay icons) - they are shared between multiple applications (Google drive, One drive, Tortoise SVN). If you have multiple applications installed - the first ones in list will display their icons, rest of applications won’t.

Problem is described deeper in: https://tortoisesvn.net/faq.html#ovlnotall.

Open registry editor in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

Rename icons which are not important to you to start from ‘z_’ prefix (will be last in list, will not be used after that).

Windows restart might be needed, as just restart explorer does not work. But in my case icons appeared to be correct after some time. (10-20 minutes ?).

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Comments

[user3340627]

I sort of followed this answer, except that I renamed the Tortoise icons to start with 1, 2, 3,...etc in order to let them show at the top

[user3340627]

I tried that but it didn't work for me. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Carsten Schütte]

Unfortunately, we cannot upgrade to TortoiseSVN 1.9, because our servers are still running svn-1.6. Any ideas how to solve this with TortoiseSVN 1.8?

[IvanRF]

There is an option that takes you to that registry in Settings -> Icon Overlays -> Overlay Handlers -> Start registry editor. At least in version 1.9.1

[AaA]

It is not just 1,2 and 3. there are spaces before names too. in any case they should stand on top of the list

[Rajeev]

Simple and the best solution. :)

[Jerry James]

It may work, but not correct, Please check the solution provided by Kelly Carter.

[Jerry James]

It may work, but not correct, Please check the solution provided by Kelly Carter.

[Mike Fuchs]

What a ridiculous mess. On my machine, OneDrive, SkyDrive keys all have a space in front of the name, trumping svn which only had numbers. So I add two spaces. Next version, OneDrive will have three spaces. In a few more versions, we'll fall of the east edge of the screen. Here's some background info.

[Richard Whitehead]

In my case I used 1.9.3.

[mike]

YES! Checking "Removable drives" and "Network drives" was what I needed to do.

[BigBadMe]

Worked for me. Needed to reboot but after that the overlays were there

[Mark Berry]

After upgrading from 1.7.7. to 1.9.4, I had to right-click on the folders in Explorer that were mapped to SVN and choose SVN Upgrade working copy. Only after allowing the upgrade "to the new 1.8 format" did the icon overlays re-appear.

[webworm]

This was the case for me. I tried all the other steps listed in other answers including changing the registry. None of them worked for me.However, I have a dual external monitors running at native resolution while my internal display was running at 125% (easier on my eyes). It was only after changing my internal display to 100% that the icon overlays showed for me. I am using TortoiseGit v2.2.0.0 on Windows 10. Way to go Microsoft ... still have not DPI scaling to work correctly. Thanks for the answer @BenButzer!

[MarkD]

This answer needs more visibility! tried everything and it turned out to be DPI.

[ReluctantBIOSGuy]

In my case it did not matter if the scales were the same or different; what mattered was the scale itself. For example, 150% on one monitor was okay on that monitor, but 100% on the other was not. If I moved a window showing icons from the 150% monitor to the 100% monitor, the icons would disappear. Excellent design by someone...NOT.

[Jean-François Beauchamp]

It did not work for me on Win 10 Pro. :-/ Did you have to reboot twice: Once after unchecking the checkboxes, and once after checking them back on?

[Jean-François Beauchamp]

Unfortunately, this did not solve the issue for me on Windows 10 with TortoiseSVN 1.9.4 and TortoiseGIT 2.3.0.0. :-/

[Jean-François Beauchamp]

Unfortunately, this did not solve the issue for me on Windows 10 with TortoiseSVN 1.9.4 and TortoiseGIT 2.3.0.0. :-/

[Jean-François Beauchamp]

I tried re-installing ToortoiseSVN 1.9.4, and unfortunately, this did not solve the issue for me on Windows 10 (with TortoiseSVN 1.9.4 and TortoiseGIT 2.3.0.0). :-/

[magicandre1981]

@Jean-FrançoisBeauchamp count the number of registered overlays and delete some if you have more than 15

[mcy]

Though I did not have much hope, for some reason checking network and removable drives fixed my problem (though my files are on a fixed drive) on windows 10 v1607-14393.447 with tortoise svn 1.9.4 27285; both are x64.

[Mark Berry]

And now after wiping the hard drive, re-installing Windows 10, then re-installing TortoiseSVN 1.9.2. again the icons wouldn't re-appear. I had to rename the hidden folders from _svn to .svn. It seems there may have been an override in place before (see stackoverflow.com/a/21636584/550712)

[Jon Pawley]

Irritatingly, it now seems that Dropbox is inserting 3 spaces before the names of its Overlay Icon Handlers.... so I needed to renamed my TortoiseSVN Icon Handlers to have 4 spaces at the front. This is just a war of attrition :(

[magicandre1981]

@JonPawley say "thanks" to Microsoft for not increasing the ugly limit. Instead of making the core of Windows better, they now change the color of BSOD to green. Here you see their priorities.

[will]

This has no effect with TortoiseSVN-1.9.5.27581-x64 and Microsoft Windows `[Version 10.0.14393]' I'm afraid.

[TmTron]

I had to start the "Settings" program as administrator. Finally I just restarted the Explorer in taskmanager and it worked again.

[Sethmr]

This should be a comment I think.

[Den]

Ha-ha-ha! Microsoft changed OneDrive ones to start with a space! I have added a space in front of each already numbered Tortoise node as well. I feel this is not the end of it.

[Groo]

Yes, my machine has Dropbox entries above OneDrive, with even more spaces. Seems the shell overlay wars have begun.

[vikingben]

I had to uninstall drop box before any of these registry fixes would work. Just a heads up for others.

[Jeff G]

I just uninstalled Dropbox (which I have no need for) which was taking up icon slots and, lo and behold, my TortoiseSVN icons are back. (That's all I needed to do.) Edit: well, most of them - but the plus icon for new, unversioned files is still missing. The main ones (green tick and red exclamation mark) are there

[Jeff G]

I ran out of time to re-edit my previous comment - just remove my edit: I forgot you have to add the unversioned files before the blue plus sign appears - which it does. :)

[Jeff G]

@adabyron where do I find these keys with spaces? In regedit, if I click on one of the folders under ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers (e.g. Tortoise1Normal) all I see is the (Default) key, type REG_SZ and the data is a UUID.

[Jeff G]

@Groo I see adabyron's post was a year ago, so can you help with my question above, please? (Can't flag more than one user, it seems.) EDIT: Ok scrub that! It seems people are referring to the folder names, not the actual keys. If I right click and rename I can see the spaces. Can't tell with proportional fonts!

[Groo]

@JeffG: great, glad that you found the solution. The reason is that Windows only takes first 15 entries inside ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers into account and ignores everything else, so now every application is trying to beat the system by inserting spaces to get a higher "alphabetical" rank.

[Moolie]

Like Jon Pawley said, others have adopted this strategy as well now. On my system, the Google drive and OneDrive entries all started with 2 spaces :(

[magicandre1981]

@Moolie yes I already saw this. Dropbox now also uses 3 spaces. send feedback to MS via feedback hub app.

[Jim W says reinstate Monica]

Now OneDrive and DropBox are prepending with even more spaces. It's the space race all over again...

[Cornelius]

I backed up my Google Drive keys just in case, deleted them, restarted my File Explorer and it worked! Tortoise overlays, finally!

[Jineesh Uvantavida]

This helps in solving my problem also. I was not having admin rights in my computer. But still i was able to resolve svn issue using this solution.

[bmode]

After the other answers failed to resolve my issue, I tried this and it worked. Except that I had to add 5 spaces in from of the Tortoise keys to get them ahead of OneDrive. Insanity!

[Soumya Kanti]

Why deleting OnedriveX entries is not permitted?

[madan]

I tried several other combinations but it didn't work but this suggestion fixed my issue.

[Micha]

@madan nice :-)

[dfresh22]

I can also confirm this has no effect on the latest SVN.

[Tamir Gilany]

Unbelievable that this limit was the reason for the issues with my icons :O

[basit]

Worked for me, try Refresh Shell Overlays under clean-up if it doesn't work at first.

[aolszowka]

@Groo Where did you find that Windows only takes into account the first 15? Is there a way to increase that limit?

[rcpa0]

Google drive only added 3 entries. TortoiseSVN added 9. Since I didn't really need OneDrive, it was easier to uninstall it than to find a way to keep it at the bottom of the list.

[Rafay]

This is a good answer and an effective one but @cyx 's answer should be marked correct. as deleting keys impacts other applications

[David Tran]

Thanks, ran into this issue today with TortoiseGIT. Checking the necessary boxes under the Drive Types area was the solution for me.

[Kai]

Worked for me as well with Tortoise SVN 1.14.0

[joeshmo]

Thank you very much! A strange limitation..

[alextoind]

"Show excluded root folders as normal" is also required together as "Network drives" if you have a shared folder inside your VM guest.