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PDF Desktop Icon Black

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
April 22, 2019
17 replies
65069 views

WIN 10 64 Pro Adobe Acrobat Pro DC .20100

Unfortunately, I did receive the most recent windows update.

Problem: The PDF icons on my desktop turn black.

Acrobat is set to shop images in the icons and view as large icons.

When logging in to windows, icons first appear as generic red/white icons, then become images.

At the end of windows login, all Desktop PDF icons snap to black.

Icons show images in all other folders except desktop, as well, images show in Dropbox.

Is there a way to fix this? If it is the update, can it be redacted?

Many thanks

General troubleshooting

Correct answer tsmith35x

Just adding my 2 cents... despite the fix above ("Fixes for 64-bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails") being about 10 years old, it works like a charm.

Windows 10 Pro x64 here with no problems until I tried out the 64-bit version of Adobe Acrobat DC. Once the 64-bit version was installed, my pdf icons turned into black boxes. The only way to prevent the black boxes (after trying numerous fixes) was to set Windows to display icons and never previews.

Finally, after messing with this problem for 3 days, I followed the advice on the "Fixes for 64-bit..." and the problem was IMMEDIATELY fixed. Icons are back to normal, "preview" icons work as expected, screen refreshes are uneventful, and this all happens regardless of icon size, screen resolution and any of the rest.

I should have done what was on the "Fixes..." page days ago, but I thought there's no way that 10 years could have passed without someone fixing the original problem. So never say never. The old fix still works. It corrects one incorrect CLSID in the Windows registry. That's it. And it works.

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JR Boulay

Community Expert

By chance I found a workaround, now all my PDF icons stays as thumbnails and never revert to black squares:

1- install the free F*x*t Reader

2- go to any PDF files "properties" to revert Acrobat as default software for opening PDF files.

That's all!

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

P

Pedro Aboim

Participant

Hi

I'm having the exact same problem. Using the Adobe preview handler fix doesn't work anymore (at least in my case) - the desktop thumbnails revert to a black square or to the default pfd icon, as soon as onedrive syncs the file... When you mean " go to any PDF files "properties" to revert Acrobat as default software for opening PDF files.", you mean setting Acrobat again as the default software?

Thank you in advance.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

THANK YOU aknewhope !!!

I didn't notice this before but effectively icons turn to black when doing a Save as on the Desktop, using Firefox, Acrobat or any software.

But since I'm not a OneDrive user I guess that this issue comes from elsewhere…

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi there

We need some more information for a better understanding. Is the preview handler enabled as shown in the screenshot below

Also, does the issue happen if this setting is OFF?

Regards

Amal

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Yes, the preview handler is enabled.

I tried to enable it in Acrobat Reader and disabled it in Acrobat Pro, and vice versa. I also tried to enable it in both.

The behaviour remains the same.

I noticed another thing: after using "show/hide invisible files" to restore icons, they sometimes (not every times) reverts to black squares when I drop a PDF file from the desktop to the trash.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

aknewhope

Participant

Seems like this may be related to OneDrive Icon Overlay Handler, and in particular "ErrorOverlayHandler Class". My icons turn black every time I open a save dialog. For example, load this webpage and ctrl+s. You will see the desktop icons refresh. For me, this is when they get screwed up. If I disable "ErrorOverlayHandler Class", this refreshing never occurs. This is not the first time I've had trouble with OneDrive and random refreshing occuring and causing problems. Also, if you create another Windows account, the issue appears to be gone as that user is not logged into OneDrive by default.

Adobe, can you provide any more insight into this as I'm dependent on OneDrive.

04/26/2020 12:20 AM: Nevermind. I had that Icon Handler disabled and now all of my icons are black again. If I right click on the desktop and refresh, everything will be fixed, but it will all be black in a couple of minutes.

04/26/2020 12:41 AM: Created another user account on my computer and it appears that the issue is not present. Adobe, do you have any idea as to why this would be? Is there some files in the AppData folder we should delete? Where does the Adobe Thumbnail extension cache?

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Thank you Amal but none of these solutions acts more than 3 minutes, icons still revert to black squares…

When I turn on (or off) the display of hidden files, icons are rebuilt and displays fine… for about 3 minutes too.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi JR_Boulay

We are sorry to hear that. Would you mind sharing the procmon logs of the affected machine for further investigation?

Please download the procmon tool (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon), run the tool and recreate the issue to collect the logs.

Please upload the log file to the document cloud (https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/home/) generate the link and share it with us.

Regards

Amal

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Hi Amal

Here is the log file: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A71f3d71d-b4de-47e1-9b73-1e2815255ca1

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Up, up, up

SOS, please help.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi JR_Boulay

We are sorry for the delay in response. I hope you would be able to fix the issue by now.

If the issue still persists, Have you tried the solutions provided in the similar discussion (https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/pdf-icons-on-desktop-turn-into-black-squares/m-p/9269976?page=1#M64627)suggested by you above?

Please do let us know the results

Regards

Amal

JR Boulay

Community Expert

This issue is still not fixed.

I deleted the "IconCache.db" file, restarted, and I got previews during about 2 seconds, and they revert to black squares icons.

Can I use this old (2014) fixup? : https://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/

Found in this topic: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/pdf-icons-on-desktop-turn-into-black-squares/m-p/9269976?page=1#M64627

I bought my PC a month ago and have already uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat Pro twice.
Once because "PDF Optimizer" did not work (it's OK now), and once because the shortcut ctrl - creates a sticky note instead of zooming out (which did not work, I just lost time).

It is therefore not worth advising me to start by wasting my time with an uninstall-reinstall.

Thank you for your help.

Acrobat Pro 2020.006.20042

Windows 10 Professional 1909

Version 18363.720 (last updated this night)

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi Stephenb,

Apologies for the delay in response, I hope this would be fixed by now.

If the problem still persists, you may refer to the similar discussion on Microsoft Community here - Pdf files show as black icons on my desktop. - Microsoft Community

Let us know if you need more information.

Regards,

Amal

B

bochaa@gmail.com

Participant

Is anyone going to solve this problem? It's happened in the last March Update, again. It's a Reader DC problem, not a Windows 10 issue, cause the version before was ok. I've already tried to reinstall it, didn't work.

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