Make it simpler to report bugs like broken taskbar icon

[shanen]

Already spent a while trying to find out how to report this glitch. Mostly wasting time trying to see if something so obvious hasn't been reported already. Ease of reporting bugs needs work.

The bug is just the taskbar icon. It broke some versions ago. Firefox is open, but no icon is displayed on the taskbar, just a blank document icon. The rectangle with the folded down corner. I strongly suspect it's specific to this machine and related to some other status bug that is screwing up the bookmarks toolbar display, though that problem started long before the icon disappeared from the taskbar.

I run Firefox on several other machines with various OSes, and in particular there is no corresponding glitch on the other Windows 10 boxen.

Time to try another reset? But that's rather painful and I can't recall that it's ever helped anything...

But maybe someone else has seen it.

[jscher2000]

I don't know whether Taskbar icons are part of the desktop icon cache, but over the years, Windows help sites have suggested to delete an IconCache.db file to resolve issues there. When I searched just now, it sounds like this has become more complicated in Windows 10-11, and you may want to consult several articles to see what the easiest procedure is nowadays.

[shanen]

Didn't notice your reply until now? I actually came back today to say something about recent problems, but have already given up on that idea. If the Mozilla-side objective is to discourage feedback, then mission accomplished.

Anyway, the problem persists, but I feel like I don't want to rock the boat by messing with it... However I definitely don't feel like Firefox has done anything in the last few years that i would have paid for if they had asked me in concrete terms for money to do something. Just constant vague requests to throw money at Firefox and vague promises that they will do something with the money to make Firefox "better"...

The features I would actually want to pay for? Probably "more stability" and "If it ain't broke don't fix it" features. If only I had such choices.

I definitely would NOT have donated any money for the email-based login procedure. Significant nuisance and deterrence against feedback and mostly makes me think that the Mozilla people don't even trust their own browser's password cache.

[jscher2000]

Regarding the Taskbar button icon: I recently had a blank icon for two days on Windows 10. I went into Properties (right-click Taskbar button, right-click Firefox, click Properties) and then used the Change Icon button. Nothing happened. But about 8 hours later it was back to normal.

Actually, my icon is called Firefox (6). I have installed and removed various different versions over the years and Windows seems a bit confused. But like you, I don't want to rock the boat with a major cleanup so... this will have to do for now.

Regarding donations: Donations to the Mozilla Foundation (https://foundation.mozilla.org/) go to various programs to defend and promote an open web including various privacy initiatives. I don't think anyone's donations to the Mozilla Foundation go to Firefox development, certainly not directly.

[shanen]

Thanks for the reply, but no Properties option in that place or any variation of that place I could think of.

As regards the funding topic, my imaginary solution would be to break things down on a per-project basis. My working tag is CSB for Charity Share Brokerage. The CSB would actually handle the money and support project management. On my side, I would see the proposed features and could decide to donate for a charity share to any project that I like. When enough donors agree, then the CSB turns on the money, and after the project is finished the CSB would check the results and tells all the donors (and the world), though most of the work would actually be on the front end, where the CSB would make sure the project proposals were complete and feasible, with such things as a schedule, budget, testing, and success criteria. Yeah, I know software development is still more artistic than scientific, but shouldn't the programmers have some idea what they are supposed to be doing before I give them the money? (And yes, the CSB would have a view so I could see the history of the projects I'd supported and how they came out before I donated more money.)

But I've been advocating the CSB for years without any evidence of interest (or even comprehension), so the idea must be completely broken in some way I can't understand.

[shanen]

New bug, but same problem reporting anything. Not sure this one is really internal to Firefox, which would then go back to unneeded new versions with no bugs and no advantages, or if the problem is part of Microsoft's ongoing war against enemy browsers, in which case Firefox is continuing to lose.

Increasingly hard for me to understand why I persist in using Firefox. Lack of better options is not exactly the greatest sales point in the world.