App icons are randomly changed to the 'default' icon

[saberwing]

I recently bought a MacBook Pro, the 2016 model, which I updated to the latest MacOS. For some strange reason, however, the icons of some apps sometimes randomly change to the standard app icon as seen in this image below:

They don't all turn into the wrong icon at the same time, it is seemingly random. I've been searching the web for a solution, but I cannot seem to find it. Does anybody know why this happens or how I can solve it?

 

[HenryAZ]

The following Terminal commands work for me, when this happens (although for me it is usually just a single app icon).

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;
sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;
sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

killall Dock

 

[xgman]

The following Terminal commands work for me, when this happens (although for me it is usually just a single app icon).

sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;
sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.iconservices -exec rm -rf {} \;
sudo rm -rf /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

killall Dock

Does this also work for custom icon caches in the finder and not in the dock?

 

[danielwsmithee]

I had this problem on my iMac in a single user account. I tried the above mentioned terminal command as well with no success. I finally solved the issue by booting in safe mode, logging into the user account, then restarting back into normal mode.

It hasn’t happened to me since.

 

[minimo3]

I’ve fixed the default icons in the dock but my launchpad is afflicted with the same problem. I followed instructions to delete the launchpad .db files and rebooting to force a rebuild but it didn’t fix the problem. Any suggestions?

 

[TETENAL]

I have the same problem with Launchpad only that it shows a default icon in a closed folder but it turns into the correct icon when the folder is "opened"/zoomed in.

It's another annoying High Sierra bug.

 

[TETENAL]

I was in the store yesterday, and the display MacBooks there have the same problem.