Damn favicon driving me insane
 

Recently moved servers and ever since I've been going insane with my favicon.ico

I can server to server transfer a working one off an older machine or even if I copy it from my pc...

in ie it'll either be blank or red x if I try to load just the .ico file in my browser..
in firefox I get just the text instead http://www.pk.com/favicon.ico and instead of it saying icon image above it says image (on my computer it shows that it's a windows icon file.
in netscape it tells me the file has errors..

now... all this time I have a copy of the same image under a different name..
http://www.persiankitty.com/faviconpk.ico

I can see it just fine in all browsers... rename it to favicon.ico and boom... problems.

I uploaded an older and larger gif form and use the link element line in my header. That I can see... but I'm still trying to figure what's going on with the .ico file.

PS.. I can take another site's ico file.. say googles.. upload it to my machine see it fine if the name is anything other than favicon.ico the minute I name it favicon.ico the problems occur with it.

I'm not anal... really I'm not... really

You do upload it to your root dir right? Don't put it in your public html or images dir, put it in your root dir.

yep..where it's always been

Do you perhaps have a redirect for your favicon in your .htaccess?

That would explain why changing the name would break it even if it worked under another name - it would still be trying to show you something else from another location.

open with PAINT (must be 16 by 16) and save it as .ico in case it's not a "real" ico file, see if that helps

Please check your error logs and see if you got entries like this: "favicon.ico not found" and let us know.

no, only redirect in .htaccess is for 404

First thing I tried.

Only get the not found errors if I delete the file completely

Ok, try this:

Upload the favicon.ico file to your images folder and put this line in the HEAD section of your index file:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/Images/favicon.ico" />

and see if this works for you.

The server sends the content type for .ico, right?

Test by using this in your .htaccess:
AddType image/x-icon .ico

If the above doesn't work, run your .ICO file thruw this website:

http://www.favicon.cc/

upload the result to your root dir, delete the entry (post above) from your HEAD section of your index file and then it should work, if not........ i'm puzzled!

grabbed the image and uploaded it one of my hosts, works just fine so it's your host

http://www.6dicksunder.com/hl/fav.html

There is a long term server caching happening or this and also the name has to stay favicon.ico

I get the same errors when I put it in my images folder. Still any other name.ico on the server I can see. I can rename it favicon1.ico and see it.

Only thing i can think of right now is your apache httpd.conf file missing this line:

"AddType image/x-icon .ico"

If so, insert it and restart apache, else you should talk to your host.

The most recent version if the .ico file I'm working with, I did just that with.

We're running things a bit different than we had been on these machines. I'm seeing a 0 byte favicon.ico in the localhost directory I'm wondering if it's trying to get that no matter where I put the favicon.ico file.. which to me would seem odd that I get the same problem if I try to view the file in my images directory rather than root.

Sadly.. I can't upload to the localhost directory at the moment. Emailing my admin for access to see if uploading it there will fix things. If that is the problem it would mean I'm stuck using the same favicon for everything or going the way of the .gif file and use the link element line for a gif icon.

Eh, just putting it in .htaccess would be easier, like I said above.

The actual change in httpd.conf could be made on the next scheduled reboot.

It's trying to grab the localhost 0 byte version.

I can try loading anything/favicon.ico including directories where it should show up as 404 and I get the same issues.

Email sent to my admin. I'm sure it'll be fixed in the morning.

Guess I just hadn't dug 5 more minutes long enough.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Putting it in htaccess is easyer, you are right about that but i'm always thinking "dedicated server" ways :) In that case putting it in the httpd.conf file solves the problem for all accounts :)

Yep, there's your problem.

I just checked, and the server does provide filetype info. It just serves the favicon as a 0 byte image.

I'm a good kitty and don't touch things I know nothing about such as httpd.conf etc.

It was dedicated servers for eons solely for the pk domain until I decided recently to add a few other things.

I'm not sure exactly how apache handles this if the favicon is set to the localhost dir in the httpd.conf and you set it to your on own dir using an insert in your HEAD section of your index file. Logically i would think IE or FF would listen to the HEAD section of the index file but how logical is everything when it comes to internet? :winkwink:
Maybe you are on to the problem here, good luck with it anyway and sorry we couldn't help you more.

A rewrite rule in httpd.conf could rewrite any request for that filename to the file she mentioned. So, the gif would work (as she said) because it's a different filename, but the same filename in another directory would not.

Changing the place where the browser looks in your HEAD section only changes where the browser looks, not where the server looks, so it wouldn't help with the same filename.

Wow, this is usefull!

I have problems loading my favicon too. Still unresolved. I must try suggestions above. Thanks.

For those wondering, it was the fact that my servers default to the 0 byte favicon.ico in the localhost directory.

Because I'm virtual hosting several things on my machines now (all my stuff) and I want different favicons for different things, my server admin is going to write something so that it checks first in the virtual-hosted directory for the favicon.ico file and if it finds one there it loads it.

That would be a cool solutions

Wow GFY is in a helpful mood today :1orglaugh

Come on. This is PK, not some random knucklehead asking if he should create his first adult site because he's "like totally good with computers." :winkwink:

That is one really ugly favicon.

I didn't make it... was given to me eons ago..
got anything better for me?