Broken Website Icons On Desktop

Longfellowe · 13 Mar 2023

Hi Folks,

For some reason all of my desktop shortcuts that point to websites have broken. When I double click on any one of them I get this:

Broken Website Icons On Desktop-untitled.jpg

I’m running Win10 version 22H2 – 19045.2604, browser is Chrome, and default search engine is Google.

When I right-click a broken icon and select Properties, in the Target Window I get this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome_proxy.exe" --profile-directory=Default --app-id=biegcdpmmfiojiijocmlmlkchbcedeoi. The alphabet soup at the end changes from Icon to Icon but all go to the same screen above.

More frustratingly, when I go to a website that used to connect with one of the broken icons and try to create a new shortcut using the “create shortcut” tool in Chrome it creates a new shortcut but it too is broken, going to the same screen as above.

Any suggestions on how I can restore these shortcuts, or just be able to make new ones, would be greatly appreciated.

dalchina · 14 Mar 2023

Just a thought by way of explanation of chrome-proxy.exe I found for you:
chromium - What the difference between chrome and chrome_proxy? - Super User

kreemoweet · 14 Mar 2023

So it seems it's Chrome that's broken, or it's making broken shortcuts - not much to do with Windows 10.

dalchina · 14 Mar 2023

Suggest you uninstall, reinstall Chrome. And there will be a Chrome-specific forum where you might find program-specific help.

pepanee · 14 Mar 2023

Open Notepad, and drag-and-drop any one of those links into Notepad. Can you copy-paste what is shown in there to here?

Longfellowe · 14 Mar 2023

Thanks to all who replied with suggestions.

This morning another of my PCs started doing the same thing. This machine, however, showed a help screen indicating that this is some kind of known incompatability between Windows and Chrome. Something about a change from December 2022 in the way shortcuts are handled. I think I need to follow dalchina's advice and navigate to a Chrome support site.

Thanks, again...

spunk · 14 Mar 2023

Are you connecting with a VPN? This will automatically create a Proxy Server.
You are saving your shortcuts thru google-proxy. which is good for privacy but may have adverse affects on your shortcuts.
You can remove the Proxy Server and just run Google Chrome normally How To Change Chrome Proxy Settings In a Few Easy Steps

dalchina · 15 Mar 2023

How are you creating your shortcuts?

If I drag from the lock icon on the address bar to e.g. the desktop, a URL shortcut is created:

Longfellowe · 15 Mar 2023

Spunk: I'm not running a VPN, and I'm not really advanced enough as a user to understand or use proxies. That said I did find my settings:

Broken Website Icons On Desktop-proxy.jpg

Just for grins I turned off the switch at the top to see if would make any difference and it didn't.

Dalchina: Thanks for the drag-and-drop tip. I'm actually already using that to restore some of my more critical shortcuts. The downside is that it doesn't bring with it a desktop icon from the website, at least not when you're running Chrome, perhaps it does in Edge but I'm not keen on making any application changes to my system until I figure out what is going on for fear of making things more complicated.

dalchina · 16 Mar 2023

Hmm.. disappointing that Chrome does not provide the icon using drag 'n drop- Firefox does.

How do you create these shortcuts? I assume like this:

I tried creating a shortcut in Chrome this way:

How do I save a URL as a shortcut?
To create a desktop shortcut to a website using Google Chrome, go to a website and click the three-dot icon in the top-right corner of your browser window. Then go to More tools > Create shortcut. Finally, name your shortcut and click Create.

The result (just note the format compared to yours- and here's that proxy):
Target:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome_proxy.exe" --profile-directory=Default --app-id=pdiehhechgockhmenmghffbamidfbjfj

Start in:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application"

Here are the two shortcuts with different icons to the same site created from Chrome:

The left created using the 3 dots method, the right by drag ' drop.

The icons available for the rt shortcut are (uselessly):

As to Edge (Chromium - hint) - well, unsurprisingly it does the same as Chrome here- drag 'n drop results in a shortcut withthe generic icon.

I tried Vivaldi - drag 'n drop here is even worse... the name of the shortcut for a Bank of Scotland website became just 'login.jsp' - the last part of the string. Whilst dragging, the icon was that of the Bank of Scotland, but when dropped, became the same generic one.

Clearly drag 'n drop to create a URL shortcut seems badly defined and poorly implemented by some browsers.
Here Firefox wins.

Broken Website Icons On Desktop

Broken Website Icons On Desktop

Thanks To All

Spunk & Dalchina Replies