Unity launcher uses generic icon for Firefox in Ubuntu 12.04

Question

After upgrading my distribution from 11.04 to 11.10 to 12.04 when starting a Firefox instance (from Alt+F2, not having a fixed launcher element) the icon displayed for it in the launcher and application switcher is the generic one (grey rectangle with a question mark in the middle). Why is that and how can I get the Firefox icon to display?

Solution 1

Searching the web I found this lead pointing me in the right direction. Then I did the following:

1. Lock icon to launcher (right-click on the launcher icon)

2. In a terminal execute gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Launcher favorites which displayed ['nautilus-home.desktop', '/home/<USER>/Desktop/ff.desktop']

3. Identify relevant desktop file, in my case /home/<USER>/Desktop/ff.desktop

4. Have a look at the file, less /home/<USER>/Desktop/ff.desktop and check where Icon* keys point to, e.g. Icon[en_US]=/usr/lib/firefox-10.0.2/icons/mozicon128.png

   My problem was that these keys pointed to locations that didn't exist any more.

5. Use tab-completion to determine which Firefox directory actually exists, ls /usr/lib/fir[TAB][TAB], finding /usr/lib/firefox/

6. Find a suitable icon in that directory find /usr/lib/firefox/ -name "*.png", finding /usr/lib/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png

7. Change all Icon pointers to the existing icon /usr/lib/firefox/browser/icons/mozicon128.png

8. Close and restart Firefox, now with a Firefox icon in the launcher and application switcher

Solution 2

Simplest method:

(1.) Remove (undock) the current icon from Dash.

(2.) Use Unity to find this application (firefox).

(3.) Drag icon to Unity panel, then right-click on icon and select 'Lock to Launcher'.

---

Assuming that doesn't work ..

There should be a file firefox.desktop located in:

/usr/share/applications/

This should start with: (simplified for clarity)

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Firefox Web Browser
Comment=Browse the World Wide Web
GenericName=Web Browser
Exec=firefox %u
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=firefox
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Network;WebBrowser;
  :

Also delete any customised copy of firefox.desktop you find in:

~/.local/share/applications/

Comments

[Kevin Bowen]

You are encouraged to answer and accept you own answers here. Please edit out the solution part of your question and provide it as an answer on its own. Thanks!

[valid]

@maggotbrain: Will do if allowed. Posting an answer to an own question is delayed by 8 hours, accepting an own answer by 2 days. An attempt to delete the solution from above resulted in an error message.