For some reason, the icons in the Gramps Windows application are not loading properly. I have tried reinstalling without success. Does anyone know what the cause of the problem is and how I can fix it?
See the attached screenshot for more details.
Gramps 1.5.1
Windows 11
Hmmm. Windows 11. Well, this is an answer appropriate to Win10. Maybe it is still applicable.
The missing icons are in the Adwaita theme. They should be in:
C:\Program Files\GrampsAIO64-5.1.5\share\icons\Adwaita\22x22\actions
Did you have the Themes add-on installed and then removed it? Or maybe you have been experimenting with different theme selections.
Re-install the Themes addon (or unhide it), select a different Theme (such as “HighContrast”) in the last tab of Gramps Preferences, save the change, then restart Gramps and change back to Adwaita theme.
I recreated the missing icons by moving the Adwaita folder out of the \shared\icons folder…
Thank you for your reply. I didn’t have the Themes add-on installed, but I installed it to see if it would make a difference. Unfortunately, installing the add-on didn’t resolve the problem, but switching to the ‘High Contrast’ mode allows me to see the icons. Changing back and restarting the app didn’t fix the problem either. The icons that don’t appear within the application can be found at the file path that you suggested, so it seems as though there’s some sort of problem in reading or finding the files.
Thank you for your suggestion, Dave. I tried this as well, but it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I’m using windows 11 with the default win 11 light theme with no custom changes and Gramps works for me; what theme are you using?
When you installed Gramps did you install using the admin user or install to a custom directory/path?
Is it possible that your download Gramps installer was corrupted somehow, try downloading it again https://github.com/gramps-project/gramps/releases/download/v5.1.5/GrampsAIO-5.1.5-1_win64.exe
Maybe try uninstalling and reinstalling?
Another option is to try the portableapps.com version and see if that works for you?
You miss understood my post. By removing the Adwaita folder, I was able to recreate what you are seeing. identifying that the problem lies with Gramps not seeing those folders under Adwaita.
I support @anon9092048 's suggestion to do a clean download and install of GrampsAIO-5.1.5-1_win64.
Hi GulliblePangolin,
I’m using windows 11 with the default win 11 light theme with no custom changes and Gramps works for me; what theme are you using?
I was not using Gramps with the theme plugin installed when I noticed the problem, although now I have installed the plugin and am using the HighContrast theme, which seems to be an effective workaround to the problem.
When you installed Gramps did you install using the admin user or install to a custom directory/path?
There is only one user on my computer and I installed it to the administrator.
Is it possible that your download Gramps installer was corrupted somehow, try downloading it again https://github.com/gramps-project/gramps/releases/download/v5.1.5/GrampsAIO-5.1.5-1_win64.exe
Maybe try uninstalling and reinstalling?
I have tried this a few times now, but to no avail.
Another option is to try the portableapps.com version and see if that works for you?
I will give it a go.
EDIT: I’ve just tried Gramps Portable and it also shows the broken GUI.
The administrator is a different user from the one set up on your computer. Trying installing for ALL users.
(That doesn’t explain why the PortableApps version has the same problem though. You ARE installing that to a USB Flash drive, right? If you were installing it to internal storage for the admin, it might behave the same. I never even considered trying that as it defeats the whole purpose of Portable Gramps.)
Try modifying the Gramps shortcut to Run as Administrator
I am on Win10 so do not know what changed in 11.
Note that while Run as Administrator is a good experiment (and faster than a re-install), it should NOT be used as a permanent solution.
There are good reasons to constrain Gramps from writing to protected directories without the safety of a confirmation step.
And of course, it would depend on how @Rustic-Citrus has set up his user account in Win11. His user account may not have administrator rights.
Another (GrampsPortable V5 under linux wine) user reported the same issue after resolving the font problem where all text showed as rectangular placeholders.
It was about 2 months ago in the Facebook group and has no reply. (They tacked a comment on an already resolved thread.):
I’m trying to figure out what he’s doing, but in all honesty, I think that he’s putting the horse behind the cart, and I can better stay away from it. There are better ways to deal with this, and it feels like his principles are getting in the way a bit.
Yes, his inclination towards GrampsPortable is understandable … even though running a variant of the Windows port on a machine with the native development OS seems counter-intuitive. But the tweaks the PortableApps developer did to make Gramps resource filepaths relative probably have conflicts with the wine mods.
There was once a bootable Linux Live CD with 3.2.5 Gramps version. I wonder if it would be possible to have Linux, Mac (intel & silicon) and Windows (32bit & 64bit) application forks installed to be immediately accessible on the same USB device? And have all use a common User including (plugins) directory, db folder & media folder on that USB device. Having a luggable Gramps that you can use on any desktop (no mobile OSes) would be very appealing. (With that much overhead, ‘luggable’ is more accurate than ‘portable’.)
The MacOS seems like it’d be the easiest … since its install is already drag’n’drop. But there might need a new ‘launcher’ layer to offer the appropriate application for the OS (including the Console flavor) and allow pointing to a common User Directory.
I can understand his choice for Gramps portable if he can’t bring a laptop to the archive, and can put a thumb drive (what we call a USB stick) in a Windows PC on location. What I don’t understand however is his choice for running Gramps portable in Wine at home. That is quite silly IMO, because most PC’s have enough disk space to run Linux and Windows in a dual boot configuration. And in my life, the OS has always followed the applications that I liked to run, meaning that I moved from TOS to DOS to run Flight Simulator, and from Windows to Linux to be able to hack Gramps. And I still use Windows (11) to run Train Sim World 3 on this desktop, where it runs next to LMDE 5. My laptop is a bit older, and has Linux Mint 21 and Windows 10.
If he’s an OS fundamentalist, not like me, he should be able to configure Gramps on his home PC to access the grampsdb folder on his thumb drive. That wasn’t possible with BSDDB, but it should be possible with SQLite. It is quite slow, but I think that it’s more reliable than running Portable Gramps in Wine.
If he wants speed, there is an even better way, and that is to leave the grampsdb folder where it is, and use FreeFileSync to keep it in sync with the grampsdb folder on his thumb drive.
The best solution IMO though is to act like an adult, and put Windows on his home PC, next to whatever Linux he likes.
The other question that was never asked… Does running Gramps in the Administrator account see the icons? Just to make sure there are no other issues.
Sorry about the delayed reply.
Try modifying the Gramps shortcut to Run as Administrator
I tried this and it made no difference.
I think it would be best to clarify the situation, as it has been a few weeks since I made this post.
I am using the All-in-One Gramps installation which I downloaded at the Gramps Project website, not the PortableApps installation. I did try to use the PortableApps version to see if it solved the problem, but it had the same problem. However, I have effectively worked around the problem by:
I can now see the icons and able to use the application. Granted, I would rather use the original icons, but it does not make that much of a difference to me.
For those whose curiosity has been piqued and would like to find the solution to the problem anyway, it may be of some relevance to know that when I start Gramps, the command line console opens and closes rapidly 2 or 3 times before the application starts. Perhaps that may be indicative of some other problem for some people.
Thank you again to everyone who took the time to reply to my original message, and for the help you provided.
Just to clarify, my user has administrative rights.
