257791 - Cannot clean up favicons from "bookmarks.html"

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Bookmarks & History, enhancement)

Description

[greg.bugnon]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040902 Firefox/1.0 PR (NOT FINAL)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040902 Firefox/1.0 PR (NOT FINAL)

I think it would be a good to have a simple way to remove/clean/stripe stored
favicons in bookmarks.html. I'm using Firefox for some time now and my favicons
are just not reprensting at all the website they are pointing to (some are
interverted,etc.) 

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.



Expected Results:  
Housework

Comment 1

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

This should be implemented as an extension IMO. Not very likely to be
implemented as a part of FF itself. Confirming RFE nonetheless.

See also bug 257474 and bug 240795 which are somewhat related.

Comment 2

[greg.bugnon]

thanks for reply, well I would have thought that it could fit nicely either
somewhere in

- "Clear cache" yellow expanding menu as a tick mark (same tick mark as
exceptions for cookies) wich would be disabled by default so that clearing the
cache would let the currently settled icons in place.

- or in bookmark manager (even nicer) since it's its job :)
option to remove them all or maybe just selecting one of the link and then
clearing associated icon inside bookmarks.html.

Since favicons are handled by default in official firefox builds without the
possibility to choose, I think being offered the possibility to control them a
bit would be more consistent with the overall approach of favicons.

Comment 3

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

er, I read that as "since we don't give a choice, it'd be more consistent to
offer a choice"  The favicon concept is nebulous at best, and there's valid
arguments for and against changing the favicon, or even offering the choice.

On a per-bookmark basis being able to change the favicon might be nice, but a
global clear certain doesn't need to go into privacy options (and cache is the
wrong place, we don't store in cache anymore).  A global reset is using an axe
to spank a baby.

Comment 4

[greg.bugnon]

Well the reason I'm asking this is because I don't have much favicons that
really corespond to the site they're associated to. If the association was ok I
don't think I would like to change some of the icons. So in a way i would better
fill a bug repport rather than feature request. The pb is that its difficult to
track this bug because its not visible.

Would it be possible then to have a special build wich would emit a bip (the
same bip as the "can't find anything in page" maybe) each time a favicon is
submitted to bookmarks.html so that I can see why and when it happens that a
favicon is associated with another link? If someone could help it would be
greatly appreciated.

Sorry for strange request :)

Comment 5

[Ben Fowler]

In reply to comment 3, although I would neither use a axe to spank a baby,
nor condone anyone else's doing that; I think that the original request is
valid in the sense that the whole favicon system is so bady specified on the
server that no browser can keep in step, even with human intervention,
on a piecemeal basis. Frankly if one is not a devouted user of favicons
(I am not) and some of one's Bookmarks have favicons may be in error
or merely unsightly, then the simplest way forward is just to flush all favicons.

I think that the original request (for enhancement) to put a means of
doing this in the Bookmarks Manager is valid.

If I can work out how to do it, would a patch be considered?

Comment 6

[David Smith]

Since the favicons are now encoded into bookmarks.html, I would expect the
favicon to show up in a bookmark's properties page.  From there perhaps add a
button(s) for Refresh (reload icon from server and store in bookmark) and
Reset/Clear (remove icon entirely (semi-permanently?)).

A global reset may be nice as well, but without a global refresh (which I expect
would be a bit more of a pain since you have to query the sites for every
bookmark you have; we don't even have the global check-for-site-update code yet,
I don't think) I'd think it would look like a sort of half-hearted attempt at a
fix, and probably not worth doing.  A somewhat more narrowly defined means of
dealing with them is probably better, and should be fairly easy to deal with by
being relatively isolated, codewise.

Comment 7

[logan]

It might be asking alot, but I think integrating Favicon Picker
<http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=617> and adding a single
menu entry in the Bookmark Manager's Edit menu to clear all would be nice.

I've seen a few people on the mozillaZine forums asking about this and thought
I'd try my hand at extensions... So far it's Tools -> Delete Icons and a Delete
Icon option on the main Bookmark menu's context menu, but cannot get the sidebar
or Bookmark Manager's context menu working, or overlay anything on the BM's Edit
menu (no id?).

This wouldn't be heavily used, so putting it on the Tools or even the context
menus may not make much sense.

'course there's always perl ;)

  while(<>) {
    s/ICON="[^\"]*" //;
    print;
  }

I'd be willing to work on this or at the very least donate relevant bits from my
extension...

Comment 8

[Martin Poirier]

The current behaviour is that the favicon is set once upon first visit, and then
never set again. This is especially a pain since there are situations where the
wrong icon is associated as per bug 258461 (and I believe it happens more often
than we think; in my bookmark file there are already dozens of inappropriately
associated icons.)
This is also probably why RFE's bug 260550 was filed.

Comment 9

[logan]

Attachment: patch v1

adds a Delete Site Icons menuitem to the Edit menu of the Bookmark Manager

Comment 10

[logan]

Attachment: patch v2

this adds a delete site icon to the bookmark context and bookmark manager's
Edit menu

Comment 11

[Gabriel Seah]

A little suggestion for patch v3: Clean up ALL favicons from bookmarks.html :)

Comment 12

[logan]

(In reply to comment #11)
> A little suggestion for patch v3: Clean up ALL favicons from bookmarks.html :)

Patch v2 provides both a delete all and selected menu items. The only thing
missing from what my original suggestion is something to select a favicon, but
if the icon is refreshed more frequently (bug 260550), that would be kindof useless.

Am I misunderstanding something or did you just think patch v2 only provided the
delete selected functionality?

Comment 13

[logan]

Attachment: patch v3

forgot to handle multiple selections in the bookmark manager and cleaned up the
menuitem names a bit, not sure about 'em though..

Bookmark Manager -> Edit ->
  Delete Site Icon(s)
  Delete All Site Icons

Bookmark context menu ->
  Delete Site Icon(s)

Delete Site Icon(s) is sensitive only if one or more selected items is a
bookmark with a site icon. Delete All Site Icons is always accessible.

Comment 14

[Ronny Perinke]

Attachment: patch based on patchv3 but this one is for the source files (aviary branch)

dunno if this patch works for trunk source

Comment 15

[Dan Soper]

I suspect that favicons are to blame for a crashing bug (247851) which no-one
but me seems to suffer from. To test this hypothesis, I *need* to get rid of
them - and not merely stop them from being displayed.


I think it is inconsistent that favicons can be switched off via about:config,
but not purged from the bookmarks file. And I disagree with comment #1 - if
extensions are to be involved at all, surely it would be to *add* favicon
support, not to help disable it?

Comment 16

[Sylvain Fourmanoit]

Attachment: General favicon updater for bookmark.html

(In reply to comment #6)
I am not sure it fits here, but here is a Python script that will go through a
given bookmark.html file, then fetch and merge back all the favicons to their
latest version.

Comment 17

[Peter Walker]

Surely it's doable to add a context-menu option to a bookmark that simply reads 'Refresh Favicon'?
It doesn't need to be an automated thing, which removes the problem of refreshing every single bookmark's favicon.
There could also be an option to refresh all in the bookmark manager?
The options don't need to be really visible to a user, as it's quite an obscure function to need... but it would be useful to me.

Comment 18

[Yani (fr)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051231
Firefox/1.6a1 
The behavior is still here.
Someone is working on this ?

Comment 19

[Ben Fowler]

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060316 Firefox/1.6a1

(In reply to comment #18)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051231
> Firefox/1.6a1 
> Someone is working on this ?

No, nobody is working on it. Personally, I agree with comment 15 , that Firefox
is too enthusiastic in its support for favicons, but I suspect that I am in 
a minority.

> The behavior is still here.

Could you state clearly what you think is the faulty behaviour (observed vs.
expected) and/or what you would like to see done?

Do you want a change in the contextual menu(s) in the Bookmark Manager?
Do you want something in the Properties dialogue for a Bookmark?
Do you want to refresh/delete favicons on a case by case basis?
Do you want to be able to delete all favicons?
Do you want to able to set a preference for Firefox to never request
favicons?
Do you want something in the Preferences dialague?

To be fair, even if there was an agreed plan, this would probably be of 
exceedingly low priority. See the Favicon Picker extension, exempli
gratia:

      Favicon Picker: I usually don't post extensions unless they have 
      support homepage, etc. but this one adds a much needed property to 
      each bookmark to let you erase or assign favicon.  This is important 
      now that favicon are now stored with the bookmarks and this code is 
      still a little flaky.  This extension will help clean the flakiness.

which may be help to you, if you are having problems with favicons.

Comment 20

[Yani (fr)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060316
> Firefox/1.6a1

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060406 Firefox/1.6a1 (bangbang023) custom sse2 build

> 
> (In reply to comment #18)
> > Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20051231
> > Firefox/1.6a1 
> > Someone is working on this ?
> 
> No, nobody is working on it. Personally, I agree with comment 15 , that Firefox
> is too enthusiastic in its support for favicons, but I suspect that I am in 
> a minority.
> 

When i posted this comment,this bug was assigned.But now,you're right : nobody's working on it.
You are probably right,see bug 271359.

> > The behavior is still here.
> 
> Could you state clearly what you think is the faulty behaviour (observed vs.
> expected) and/or what you would like to see done?
> 
> Do you want a change in the contextual menu(s) in the Bookmark Manager?
> Do you want something in the Properties dialogue for a Bookmark?
> Do you want to refresh/delete favicons on a case by case basis?
> Do you want to be able to delete all favicons?
> Do you want to able to set a preference for Firefox to never request
> favicons?
> Do you want something in the Preferences dialague?
> 
> To be fair, even if there was an agreed plan, this would probably be of 
> exceedingly low priority. See the Favicon Picker extension, exempli
> gratia:
> 
>       Favicon Picker: I usually don't post extensions unless they have 
>       support homepage, etc. but this one adds a much needed property to 
>       each bookmark to let you erase or assign favicon.  This is important 
>       now that favicon are now stored with the bookmarks and this code is 
>       still a little flaky.  This extension will help clean the flakiness.
> 
> which may be help to you, if you are having problems with favicons.
> 

The faulty behaviour is commented in bug 271359.
I think the best way to solve this issue is to implement an UI to refresh/delete favicons on a case by case basis,since only a few favicons cause problem.
And maybe a complete fix will be possible in the future.
And I agree with comment#17 ,even if it is an hidden function it will be usefull.
I know the priority of bugs #257791 and #271359 have been downgraded to low :/
I know it is not a major issue,but I think these bugs are annoying.
Btw,thanks for your input,after all this time,it is appreciated.
Sadly,Favicon Picker has no effect,it must not be compatible with places.
Best regards,
Yani.

Comment 21

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs, filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change

Comment 22

[Yani (fr)]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20061014 Minefield/3.0a1 - Build ID: 2006101404

Since place was disabled in trunk builds,when I right-click I got the following strange symbol instead of the menu :
http://bakkap.free.fr/FireFox/bookmarks_bug.png
Same in safe mode.

When I replace bookmarks.html with a fresh one (only 2 links) it's ok.
The only solution I found for the moment is to use 09/23 trunk build.
So it will be very usefull to have an option to export bookmarks in plain html.
Even if it is hidden in about:config .

PS : the python script from Sylvain Fourmanoit is outdated.

Comment 24

[Lech Deregowski [:lech]]

Is there any progress on this one still?

Another valid reason for wanting to delete the favicon image data within bookmarks.html would be for the purpose of creating a clean backup. From what I can tell, the image data alone takes up at least 3x more space than the bookmark link and title data itself on average when saving. So in other words a file which should be .25mb actually turns out to be a little over a meg at best. 

Treating it like "cache" data with an option to flush it would certainly be helpful if added to tools. This should be one of those options that appears in Fx3, even an option to swap and keep a custom icon for a site-defined icon would be a bonus since IE has had this option nearly forever now. Alternately, assigning an icon or icon overlay in place of a folder could be cool too. But that would then be the triple-bonus.

Comment 25

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Lech, no update on this, but please see bug #389987

Comment 26

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

The front-end team has decided not to fix this one.