Comment 20 for bug 180087

Well I was able to fix the problem AND keep my icon set, though the average user isn't going to want to go through the hassle of this VERY ugly fix.

It seems that the system monitor doesn't like to use .svg images as icons; rather it likes .png images. So to resolve this issue I had to 'hide' my firefox icon originally found in /home/.icons/custom_set/scalable/apps/firefox.svg in a new folder I created within that same director (named whatever you choose, I choose "firefox". Then I tracked down where the default firefox icons were kept, which was in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0b5/icons/. I think the really important one here is mozicon128.png as /usr/share/pixmaps/firefox-3.0 is linked to mozicon128.png. So I opened up Gimp and saved my original firefox.svg icon as a 128px x 128px .png (and as a 16x16 and 48x48, just to be safe as files of these sizes also exist in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0b5/icons/) named mozicon128.png (and mozicon16.png and mozicon50.png) to a convenient folder. Then I replaced the files in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0b5/icons/ with my newly created files--you need root privileges for this. The last thing I had to do was change the path for my firefox panel launcher. For this I choose my original .svg icon in it's newly created folder in /home/.icons.../firefox/.

So now firefox and the system monitor work together in harmony. But it took me an hour of looking for the various icons and testing different situations out. If someone follows my instructions here, then they will probably be ready to go in 15-20 minutes, maybe less. But it is an awful lot of work and if other icons cause similar issues then the whole process will start over again.

So with that said, the System Monitor should be programmed to find more suitable icons if it doesn't like the one that is set as the user's preference. If it comes across a .svg then if should skip it and move on to the next directory until it finds a suitable .png file instead--as the panel, nautilus, and all other programs do. A .svg icon should not keep the system monitor from running. So I agree with Frank.

I've attached the icon causing the issue. The original path was /home/.icons/CURRENT ICON SET/scalable/apps/firefox.png