Outlook/Hotmail icon disappeared

GAJ's picture
Submitted by GAJ on Tue, 04/22/2014 - 18:36

Forums:

Since a few days, the Outlook.com / Hotmail icon has disappeared from the X-notifier dropdown menu, only the account name is visible. New mail notifications are working fine, the only problem seems to be displaying the icon (I still have visible icons for Yahoo! and Gmail, only Outlook.com is missing).

Is this something I can fix myself?

RpD

Fri, 04/25/2014 - 09:32

If, for some reason, your outlook/hotmail is 'not checked', it may be having trouble accessing the account or icon, and the icon doesn't display, but as soon as it starts checking, can access the account, the icon will display.  It is possible to assign your own icon to the account though.

GAJ's picture

GAJ

Fri, 04/25/2014 - 18:17

Hi RpD,

In my case, the two outlook accounts in my list are indeed 'checked', and do display new mail, if this arrives. Everything is working fine, except for the missing icon(s).

You mention the option to manually assign an icon to an account, how can that be done?

RpD

Fri, 04/25/2014 - 21:52

First... you should check that you can access the path to the Outlook icon online.
Icons are rendered from online sources... for Outlook.com, the web address is:
http://gfx2.hotmail.com/mail/w5/m4/ltr/OLFav.ico
If your browser or other software is blocking that path, then you won't see the icons.

Really, this missing icon business should be fixable so you don't have to set a manual icon.

Otherwise... one can set a custom icon for each account, either via URL or path to a .ico file on your hard drive.
This is done via a 'hidden' option in the Firefox config file...

  • extensions.xnotifier.accounts.[HOST#USERNAME].icon : ""
    (defines custom icon URL/path)

NOTE:  Outlook.com uses the Hotmail script, so the "HOST" will be shown as "hotmail".
..and there's a link to an example at the end of this post.

So... in Firefox, type 'about:config' in the location bar...
...once about:config is open, you can type:  xnotifier   ...in the Search bar
... then scroll down to find your hotmail/outlook account (as in the hidden option format shown above).

Then right-click on your account line ending with .enabled
...click "Copy Name"
...and again right-click on the line ending with .enabled
...click "New", and "String" ...and an input box pops up.
Right-click in the input box, and click 'Paste', then change the ending from .enabled to .icon, and click 'OK'.
Another input box pops up for you to enter the String Value... (this is where to put the path to your icon file)
You can enter a URL to a .ico file on the web, such as http ://somewebsite/cool-icon.ico, or...
...you can enter the path to a .ico file on your hard drive, in the form:
file:///C:/yourfullpath/youriconfilename.ico
...and then click 'OK'...
...and restart Firefox.
You should see your custom icon in the X-Notifier account displays (-not- in X-Notifier 'Options').

Again... you'll need to have a .ico file... you can google for an outlook icon, or use IrfanView (free) to appropriately resize and save a graphic of your choice as a ".ico" format file ...somewhere on your hard drive.  And remember the full path including the file name, to be entered as instructed above.

See an example of these lines in the graphic below...

http://oi57.tinypic.com/2dryyhl.jpg

Ok?  Try checking the path to the online icon, first.

 

GAJ's picture

GAJ

Mon, 04/28/2014 - 19:18

Thanks for your reply, RpD.

Your explanation  has cleared up why the icon didn't show up in my case: I use the Firefox add-on HTTPS-Everywhere, which tried to access the outlook-icon via the https address, which does not work because the icon cannot be retrieved using a secured connection.  Disabling the add-on solved this and the outlook-icons show up normally.

CFBancroft's picture

CFBancroft

Fri, 04/25/2014 - 22:12

http://xnotifier.tobwithu.com/dp/node/481

This is "extra" info for you to look at it,
I wrote for POP/IMAP,
I guess both are same "basically".

RpD

Fri, 04/25/2014 - 22:23

But it can be used for any account.
So, yes... it makes no difference.
As I said, he really should just fix the default icon.

I used the custom icon for my test account at live.com
Usually it would show the outlook.com icon... but I was using the old interface so I wanted the hotmail icon.
Now I've switched my live.com to use the new outlook.com interface... but I still have the hotmail icon, and it's just as well, because I'm not using it for regular mail.