# A transparent 16x16 favicon.ico file is always returned, regardless of site logos
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648
**Category:** Bug
**Created:** [2015 年11 月 16 日 14:09 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648 "2015-11-16T14:09:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 14:09 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/1 "2015-11-16T14:09:43Z")
Hi,
The favicon doesn’t show up in my browser (Chrome 46.0.2490.80 m) on this forum _when I’m logged in_:
[https://forum.appleseedhq.net/](https://forum.appleseedhq.net/)
It _does_ show up if I log out, then disappears when I log in again.
Any idea?
---
### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 14:16 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/2 "2015-11-16T14:16:24Z")
I just tried on your site and I could see the favicon both times (logged out and logged in).
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 14:20 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/3 "2015-11-16T14:20:19Z")
That’s weird.
I can actually reproduce the problem on Firefox as well:
Chrome:
Maybe I somehow disabled the favicon for my user? Is that even possible?
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 14:55 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/4 "2015-11-16T14:55:48Z")
Maybe it works only on certain screen densities. At least that’s my conclusion after reading [FAQ](http://realfavicongenerator.net/faq)
The [Favicon check for meta](http://realfavicongenerator.net/favicon_checker?site=meta.discourse.org#.Vknsr3YvcuU) doesn’t look good either.
BTW: My Chrome on Android doesn’t show the favicon on the start screen. It’s just a yellow “D”. The favicon for Github works.
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 15:03 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/5 "2015-11-16T15:03:33Z")
Can’t repro on IE:
But the problem persists in Chrome and Firefox even when the browser cache is disabled.
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 15:05 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/6 "2015-11-16T15:05:16Z")
@gerhard Unrelated. I’m doing all my tests on the same PC, and the favicon shows properly in IE (always) and in Chrome/Firefox when not logged in.
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 15:30 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/7 "2015-11-16T15:30:57Z")
Oh, sorry, I overlooked the part with (not) logged in. 😊
Could it be that clearing the cache doesn’t remove cached Favicons? That still doesn’t explain why you see a different behaviour when you are logged in… Anyway, try with a new browser profile.
If it still doesn’t work, try using a network sniffer or at least the browser’s debugging tools to figure out what’s going on.
BTW: I noticed that the [server’s certificate chain is incomplete](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=forum.appleseedhq.net). You should probably fix that.
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 15:42 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/8 "2015-11-16T15:42:28Z")
@gerhard No problem.
I opened a Guest window in Chrome (so, technically, a different user profile I suppose) and the problem persists when I log in with my usual Discourse user. In the same browser window, I created a new user in Discourse, then logged in: the favicon showed up. Then I logged off again (the favicon was still there), and I logged in with my usual user, and again the favicon disappeared. Very strange.
Regarding the certificate chain being incomplete: I’m not exactly sure what I need to do, I guess I forgot to upload a certificate file on the server, thus it gets downloaded every time?
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 15:50 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/9 "2015-11-16T15:50:47Z")
You need to concat your certificate and the intermediate certificate(s) otherwise your site works only in browsers that have the missing intermediate certificate in it’s cache.
```
cat "Your Certificate" "Intermediate CA Certificate" "Intermediate CA Certificate" >> ssl.crt
```
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 16:09 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/10 "2015-11-16T16:09:14Z")
@gerhard Thanks, I’ll try to fix that.
Regarding the favicon problem, I’m not sure why Chrome doesn’t download it, even in incognito mode with caching disabled (even though the favicon shows up since I’m not logged in):
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 16 日 23:08 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/11 "2015-11-16T23:08:42Z")
Seems like [https://meta.discourse.org/favicon.ico](https://meta.discourse.org/favicon.ico) is returning something, but **should not be**.
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 07:43 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/12 "2015-11-17T07:43:49Z")
@codinghorror Right, and that may occasionally confuse browsers? Should it special-case and return a 404 error?
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 07:44 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/13 "2015-11-17T07:44:50Z")
Something new: This morning I’m seeing this (notice the pinkish square as favicon):
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 08:14 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/14 "2015-11-17T08:14:21Z")
Sorry, it seems this is mostly a support issue for the specific site in question. Other than the Android issue @gerhard pointed out, there’s nothing to fix in Discourse proper. The favicon.ico is mostly for ancient browsers and we’re about to drop support for IE9 on Jan 1 2016.
If necessary, we can redirect the requests for that file to the .png assets we must carry for modern browser icons, etc.
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 08:18 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/15 "2015-11-17T08:18:18Z")
Jeff, related or not, I think you’ve hinted at something. In my case, [https://forum.appleseedhq.net/favicon.ico](https://forum.appleseedhq.net/favicon.ico) does return a fully transparent 16x16 icon. Could this be the problem?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 08:26 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/16 "2015-11-17T08:26:44Z")
Actually you’re right, I did not understand that we are returning a valid blank ico file here, which is … not good. @sam will change it so that nginx returns the 404 for that file, before it even hits the rails stack.
Long story but there are still a lot of requests for that file from old browsers and old crawlers and view-source and so forth.
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 08:36 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/17 "2015-11-17T08:36:40Z")
Changed per:
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/81bdd2328da34ec48ae6f31ea1e20bd2a45f679a](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/81bdd2328da34ec48ae6f31ea1e20bd2a45f679a)
The blank favicon was a hack I placed in the code base even before we had our Docker deployment story (we were noticing a lot of load on our custom 404 page which is not free to generate), now that we deploy using docker and NGINX is part of the stack we can send out cheap 404s using NGINX.
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 18:25 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/18 "2015-11-17T18:25:25Z")
I just updated my instance, `/favicon.ico` does return a 404 error now, but the problem persist, only when I log in with my user. For all other users, the favicon shows up correctly.
I actually noticed that, when I’m logged in with my usual user, the favicon _does_ show up briefly before disappearing. It gets replaced, or removed, after the page has completed loading.
Maybe that has to do with the fact that my user is an administrator, and thus more things get rendered or happen than for normal users?
---
### Author:  [@dictoon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dictoon)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 18:26 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/19 "2015-11-17T18:26:50Z")
Also, the favicon shows up correctly if I disable JavaScript.
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [2015 年11 月 17 日 18:32 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648/20 "2015-11-17T18:32:59Z")
Wild guess: Maybe it’s the counter shown on the browser icon that’s causing this.
Try disabling “Show new / updated topic count on browser icon” in the user’s preferences if it’s enabled. Does that help?
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/a-transparent-16x16-favicon-ico-file-is-always-returned-regardless-of-site-logos/35648.md?page=2)