Tray icons being 'forgotten', not appearing (Windows 7)

I have a weird one here.

For reasons unknown, certain tray icons for applications selected to start with Windows are no longer appearing in the tray despite those applications having started and showing in the processes list (specifically, the Cobian Backup 10 user interface, SugarSync manager and the Creative X-Fi volume panel applet). Launching these applications again seems to remedy the issue, though they don't attempt launch in a separate instance, suggesting perhaps that they never launch properly to begin with and become suspended immediately upon being queued to start. Resource Monitor displays these processes as "running".

Additionally, the Notification Area Icons panel seems to be bollixed. Tray icons for known applications with tray icon display preferences are absent, displaying only the name of the application and not its associated icon until the application is launched (at which point the icon appears next to the application name, as is normal behavior). After a reboot, the icons are "forgotten". The exception is uTorrent, which displays the TrueCrypt icon until uTorrent is actually launched (and again reverts after a reboot). Rebuilding the icon cache didn't resolve the issue.

I've gone through the process of disabling startup programs that have associated tray icons to no avail. The issue persists when they are re-added to the startup queue. There doesn't seem to be any application causing any hang-ups of any sort, so I'm at a loss here.

For what it's worth, the last thing I've installed was SugarSync, which makes some changes to Explorer to show a small status indicator on files that are marked for syncing. I installed SugarSync with that option enabled then later disabled it. The first reboot after the install is when the issue started manifesting. I've already fired off a support ticket to SugarSync, but their response time seems to leave a lot to be desired. My suspicion is that the modification SugarSync made to Explorer is what fucked me up, but I'm pretty confident that uninstalling it wouldn't do much good (and I'd like to confirm that I can re-establish the synced folders once it's reinstalled without having to deal with uploading again before I go screwing around with that).

I'm not totally against the idea of repairing or reinstalling Windows to fix this, if it ends up being necessary, but I'm wondering if I have any less drastic options here.

Cliffs:
1) Installed SugarSync, rebooted
2) Startup apps apparently not launching correctly; no tray icons until they're (re-)started manually
3) System Notification Icons panel all bollixed up; icons either absent or displaying the wrong icon until apps are launched manually
4) Rebuilt the icon cache -- no dice
5) Disabling startup applications and re-enabling one at a time -- no dice; no apparent hang-ups
6) Haven't uninstalled SugarSync yet; looking for other potential options for a solution

Try logging out, not restarting, then log back in and see if they load....

Good suggestion -- it worked. Further investigation is pointing in SugarSync's direction. Will uninstall, reboot and report back.

Seems Windows 7 have issues with icon caching. I know a lot of people having one problem or another with icons - the most popular being it doesn't always show up in your Start menu, but rather displaying a white default icon.

I've also noticed mismatched icons in Customize Notification options. Sometimes Outlook would have a Bluetooth icon, sometimes Metabrowser will have VirtualDrive icon, it's random from computer to computer. But the important thing at least is that the actual system tray shows the proper icons.

I wonder if Microsoft's aware of this.

It's a timing issue with Windows. Disabling uPnP can fix it, or find a startup manager to control the loading of the various services and programs that display a Tray icon.

Let us know if you get this fixed.

Azhar said:

Seems Windows 7 have issues with icon caching. I know a lot of people having one problem or another with icons - the most popular being it doesn't always show up in your Start menu, but rather displaying a white default icon.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've had to rebuild the cache two or three times now (so far). It's easy enough to do, but it also seems like an easy-enough thing for them to fix.

brent_anderson said:

It's a timing issue with Windows. Disabling uPnP can fix it, or find a startup manager to control the loading of the various services and programs that display a Tray icon.

Click to expand...

I was thinking that. It seems I'm squared away now, so I'll reinstall SugarSync and schedule a task to launch it a couple minutes after login. We'll see what that does for me.