diff --git a/app/(app)/dashboard/page.tsx b/app/(app)/dashboard/page.tsx
index 6268a82f..b9c01b47 100644
--- a/app/(app)/dashboard/page.tsx
+++ b/app/(app)/dashboard/page.tsx
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ import Link from "next/link";
 import { createClient } from "@/lib/supabase/server";
 import { ScoreBadge } from "@/components/score-badge";
 import { FontSparkline } from "@/components/font-sparkline";
+import { ProjectLogo } from "@/components/project-logo";
 import { backfillProjectLogo } from "@/app/actions/createProject";
 import { getOrCreateDefaultOrg, isOrgWideRole, listUserOrgs, missingOrgSchema } from "@/lib/orgs";
 import { listOrgTeam } from "@/app/actions/org-members";
@@ -196,6 +197,7 @@ export default async function DashboardPage({
                       <ProjectLogo
                         url={(p as { logo_url: string | null }).logo_url}
                         name={p.name}
+                        projectId={p.id}
                       />
                       <div className="min-w-0">
                         <div className="truncate font-semibold">{p.name}</div>
@@ -315,39 +317,6 @@ export default async function DashboardPage({
   );
 }
 
-function ProjectLogo({
-  url,
-  name,
-}: {
-  url: string | null;
-  name: string;
-}) {
-  const letter = (name || "?").trim().charAt(0).toUpperCase();
-  // 40px square; rounded corners; one-letter fallback when the site
-  // either has no detectable logo or backfill hasn't run yet.
-  if (!url) {
-    return (
-      <div
-        className="flex h-10 w-10 shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-md bg-[var(--color-card)] text-sm font-semibold text-[var(--color-muted)]"
-        aria-hidden
-      >
-        {letter}
-      </div>
-    );
-  }
-  return (
-    // eslint-disable-next-line @next/next/no-img-element
-    <img
-      src={url}
-      alt=""
-      width={40}
-      height={40}
-      loading="lazy"
-      className="h-10 w-10 shrink-0 rounded-md border border-[var(--color-border)] bg-white object-contain p-1"
-    />
-  );
-}
-
 type LatestPost = { url: string; publishedAt: string };
 type TrafficPoint = { day: string; count: number };
 
diff --git a/app/actions/createProject.ts b/app/actions/createProject.ts
index 4f798a4b..ef99b651 100644
--- a/app/actions/createProject.ts
+++ b/app/actions/createProject.ts
@@ -101,6 +101,40 @@ export async function backfillProjectLogo(
   }
 }
 
+// Re-run logo discovery for a project whose stored logo is broken (the
+// dashboard's <img> onError triggers this). Unlike backfillProjectLogo it
+// overwrites an existing logo_url, and clears it when nothing valid is found so
+// the tile falls back to a letter avatar instead of a broken image.
+export async function refetchProjectLogo(
+  projectId: string,
+): Promise<{ ok: boolean }> {
+  const supabase = await createClient();
+  const {
+    data: { user },
+  } = await supabase.auth.getUser();
+  if (!user) return { ok: false };
+
+  const { data: project } = await supabase
+    .from("projects")
+    .select("id, url")
+    .eq("id", projectId)
+    .maybeSingle();
+  if (!project?.url) return { ok: false };
+
+  try {
+    const logoUrl = await discoverLogoUrl(project.url);
+    await serviceClient()
+      .from("projects")
+      .update({ logo_url: logoUrl })
+      .eq("id", projectId);
+    revalidatePath("/dashboard");
+    return { ok: true };
+  } catch (err) {
+    console.warn("[discoverLogo] refetch failed for", projectId, err);
+    return { ok: false };
+  }
+}
+
 export async function updateSchedule(input: {
   projectId: string;
   schedule: "off" | "daily" | "weekly" | "monthly";
diff --git a/components/project-logo.tsx b/components/project-logo.tsx
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b3542e9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/components/project-logo.tsx
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+"use client";
+
+import { useRef, useState } from "react";
+import { refetchProjectLogo } from "@/app/actions/createProject";
+
+// Project tile logo. Shows the discovered logo; on a broken image it falls back
+// to a letter avatar immediately AND fires a one-shot re-discovery so a stale /
+// 404'ing logo_url self-heals on the next render.
+export function ProjectLogo({
+  url,
+  name,
+  projectId,
+}: {
+  url: string | null;
+  name: string;
+  projectId?: string;
+}) {
+  const letter = (name || "?").trim().charAt(0).toUpperCase();
+  const [broken, setBroken] = useState(false);
+  const refetched = useRef(false);
+
+  if (!url || broken) {
+    return (
+      <div
+        className="flex h-10 w-10 shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-md bg-[var(--color-card)] text-sm font-semibold text-[var(--color-muted)]"
+        aria-hidden
+      >
+        {letter}
+      </div>
+    );
+  }
+
+  return (
+    // eslint-disable-next-line @next/next/no-img-element
+    <img
+      src={url}
+      alt=""
+      width={40}
+      height={40}
+      loading="lazy"
+      onError={() => {
+        setBroken(true);
+        // Re-discover once; the server clears/updates logo_url so the next load
+        // shows a working logo (or a clean letter avatar).
+        if (projectId && !refetched.current) {
+          refetched.current = true;
+          void refetchProjectLogo(projectId);
+        }
+      }}
+      className="h-10 w-10 shrink-0 rounded-md border border-[var(--color-border)] bg-white object-contain p-1"
+    />
+  );
+}
diff --git a/lib/discoverLogo.ts b/lib/discoverLogo.ts
index 0c96d003..aa6b7d48 100644
--- a/lib/discoverLogo.ts
+++ b/lib/discoverLogo.ts
@@ -1,23 +1,31 @@
 import * as cheerio from "cheerio";
 
-// Walk a page's <head> and pick the best-looking logo URL. Returns
-// null if we can't find anything plausible (offline, parse error,
-// site explicitly has no icons).
+// Walk a page's <head> (and its web-app manifest) and pick the best logo URL
+// that ACTUALLY RESOLVES to an image. Returns null if nothing plausible loads
+// (offline, parse error, site has no usable icons) — the dashboard then shows a
+// letter avatar instead of a broken <img>.
 //
-// Preference order — this is what the dashboard ends up showing:
-//   1. apple-touch-icon (largest size attribute wins)
-//   2. <link rel="icon"> with type=image/svg+xml
-//   3. <link rel="icon"> with the largest size attribute
-//   4. og:image (good for sites that don't ship a proper favicon set)
-//   5. twitter:image
-//   6. /favicon.ico — last-ditch, almost every site has this
+// Preference order:
+//   1. web-app-manifest icons (largest; often the real brand logo)
+//   2. apple-touch-icon (largest size wins)
+//   3. <link rel="icon"> svg, then largest raster; mask-icon
+//   4. og:image / twitter:image (sites with no proper favicon set)
+//   5. /favicon.ico — last-ditch
 //
-// We trust HTTP redirects on the page fetch (so http://foo -> https://foo
-// works) but cap response time at FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS so a slow site can't
-// block a project create or dashboard render.
+// Every candidate is verified with a real request (2xx + image content-type)
+// before we accept it, so we never persist a 404'ing URL. We trust redirects
+// on the page fetch but cap response time so a slow site can't block a project
+// create or dashboard render.
 
 const FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS = 4000;
+const VALIDATE_TIMEOUT_MS = 3000;
 const MAX_BYTES = 1_000_000; // 1 MB of HTML is way more than enough for <head>
+const MAX_VALIDATIONS = 6; // cap image HEAD/GET checks so we stay snappy
+
+const UA =
+  "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; CrawlProofLogoBot/1.0; +https://crawlproof.com)";
+
+const IMAGE_EXT_RE = /\.(png|jpe?g|svg|ico|webp|gif|avif)(\?|#|$)/i;
 
 export async function discoverLogoUrl(siteUrl: string): Promise<string | null> {
   let parsed: URL;
@@ -30,54 +38,134 @@ export async function discoverLogoUrl(siteUrl: string): Promise<string | null> {
 
   const html = await fetchHead(siteUrl);
   if (!html) {
-    // Even without the HTML, /favicon.ico is a defensible guess.
-    return `${parsed.origin}/favicon.ico`;
+    // Even without the HTML, /favicon.ico is a defensible guess — if it loads.
+    const ico = `${parsed.origin}/favicon.ico`;
+    return (await isImageUrl(ico)) ? ico : null;
   }
 
   const $ = cheerio.load(html);
+  // Respect <base href> for resolving relative icon URLs.
+  const baseHref = $("base[href]").attr("href");
+  const base = baseHref ? safeUrl(baseHref, parsed) ?? parsed : parsed;
 
   const candidates: { url: string; weight: number }[] = [];
+  const add = (href: string | undefined, weight: number) => {
+    if (!href) return;
+    const abs = absolutize(href, base);
+    if (abs) candidates.push({ url: abs, weight });
+  };
 
   $('link[rel*="apple-touch-icon" i]').each((_i, el) => {
-    const href = $(el).attr("href");
-    if (!href) return;
-    const size = parseSizes($(el).attr("sizes"));
-    // Apple icons are usually the prettiest variant; rank by size.
-    candidates.push({ url: href, weight: 1000 + size });
+    add($(el).attr("href"), 900 + parseSizes($(el).attr("sizes")));
   });
 
   $('link[rel*="icon" i]').each((_i, el) => {
     const $el = $(el);
     const rel = ($el.attr("rel") ?? "").toLowerCase();
-    if (rel.includes("apple-touch-icon")) return; // already collected above
-    const href = $el.attr("href");
-    if (!href) return;
+    if (rel.includes("apple-touch-icon")) return; // collected above
     const type = ($el.attr("type") ?? "").toLowerCase();
     const size = parseSizes($el.attr("sizes"));
     // SVG icons scale to any DOM size — prefer them over raster.
-    const base = type === "image/svg+xml" ? 800 : 400;
-    candidates.push({ url: href, weight: base + size });
+    const weight = type === "image/svg+xml" ? 800 + size : 400 + size;
+    add($el.attr("href"), weight);
   });
 
-  const og = $('meta[property="og:image"]').attr("content");
-  if (og) candidates.push({ url: og, weight: 200 });
-  const tw = $('meta[name="twitter:image"]').attr("content");
-  if (tw) candidates.push({ url: tw, weight: 150 });
+  // Safari pinned-tab / mask icon — usually a clean monochrome SVG logo.
+  $('link[rel*="mask-icon" i]').each((_i, el) => {
+    add($(el).attr("href"), 700);
+  });
+
+  add($('meta[property="og:image"]').attr("content"), 200);
+  add($('meta[name="twitter:image"]').attr("content"), 150);
+
+  // Web app manifest icons — often the highest-quality brand mark.
+  const manifestHref = $('link[rel="manifest" i]').attr("href");
+  if (manifestHref) {
+    const manifestUrl = absolutize(manifestHref, base);
+    if (manifestUrl) {
+      for (const icon of await fetchManifestIcons(manifestUrl)) {
+        // Rank just below apple-touch so a big manifest icon can win.
+        add(icon.src, 950 + icon.size);
+      }
+    }
+  }
 
-  candidates.push({ url: "/favicon.ico", weight: 1 });
+  add(`${parsed.origin}/favicon.ico`, 1);
 
-  candidates.sort((a, b) => b.weight - a.weight);
+  // Highest weight first, de-duped, then return the first that actually loads.
+  const seen = new Set<string>();
+  const ordered = candidates
+    .sort((a, b) => b.weight - a.weight)
+    .filter((c) => (seen.has(c.url) ? false : (seen.add(c.url), true)));
 
-  for (const c of candidates) {
-    const abs = absolutize(c.url, parsed);
-    if (abs) return abs;
+  let checked = 0;
+  for (const c of ordered) {
+    if (checked >= MAX_VALIDATIONS) break;
+    checked++;
+    if (await isImageUrl(c.url)) return c.url;
   }
   return null;
 }
 
+// Resolve a manifest URL to its icon list ({src, size}), largest first-ish.
+async function fetchManifestIcons(
+  manifestUrl: string,
+): Promise<{ src: string; size: number }[]> {
+  const ctrl = new AbortController();
+  const timer = setTimeout(() => ctrl.abort(), VALIDATE_TIMEOUT_MS);
+  try {
+    const res = await fetch(manifestUrl, {
+      redirect: "follow",
+      signal: ctrl.signal,
+      headers: { "User-Agent": UA, Accept: "application/manifest+json,application/json" },
+    });
+    if (!res.ok) return [];
+    const json = (await res.json()) as {
+      icons?: Array<{ src?: string; sizes?: string }>;
+    };
+    const manifestBase = new URL(manifestUrl);
+    const out: { src: string; size: number }[] = [];
+    for (const icon of json.icons ?? []) {
+      const abs = icon.src ? safeUrl(icon.src, manifestBase) : null;
+      if (abs) out.push({ src: abs.toString(), size: parseSizes(icon.sizes) });
+    }
+    return out;
+  } catch {
+    return [];
+  } finally {
+    clearTimeout(timer);
+  }
+}
+
+// Verify a URL responds 2xx with an image content-type (or an image extension
+// when a server sends a generic type). Cancels the body so we don't download
+// the whole image.
+async function isImageUrl(url: string): Promise<boolean> {
+  const ctrl = new AbortController();
+  const timer = setTimeout(() => ctrl.abort(), VALIDATE_TIMEOUT_MS);
+  try {
+    const res = await fetch(url, {
+      method: "GET",
+      redirect: "follow",
+      signal: ctrl.signal,
+      headers: { "User-Agent": UA, Accept: "image/*,*/*" },
+    });
+    void res.body?.cancel().catch(() => {});
+    if (!res.ok) return false;
+    const ct = (res.headers.get("content-type") ?? "").toLowerCase();
+    if (ct.startsWith("image/")) return true;
+    // Some CDNs mislabel; trust a clear image extension on a 2xx.
+    return IMAGE_EXT_RE.test(new URL(res.url || url).pathname);
+  } catch {
+    return false;
+  } finally {
+    clearTimeout(timer);
+  }
+}
+
 function parseSizes(attr: string | undefined): number {
   if (!attr) return 0;
-  // sizes="180x180" or sizes="32x32 16x16" — pick the largest dimension.
+  if (/any/i.test(attr)) return 512; // scalable ("any") — treat as large
   let max = 0;
   for (const tok of attr.split(/\s+/)) {
     const m = tok.match(/^(\d+)x(\d+)$/i);
@@ -89,14 +177,18 @@ function parseSizes(attr: string | undefined): number {
   return max;
 }
 
-function absolutize(href: string, base: URL): string | null {
+function safeUrl(href: string, base: URL): URL | null {
   try {
-    return new URL(href, base).toString();
+    return new URL(href, base);
   } catch {
     return null;
   }
 }
 
+function absolutize(href: string, base: URL): string | null {
+  return safeUrl(href, base)?.toString() ?? null;
+}
+
 async function fetchHead(url: string): Promise<string | null> {
   const ctrl = new AbortController();
   const timer = setTimeout(() => ctrl.abort(), FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS);
diff --git a/tests/discover-logo.test.ts b/tests/discover-logo.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1482119f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/discover-logo.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+import { afterEach, describe, expect, it, vi } from "vitest";
+import { discoverLogoUrl } from "@/lib/discoverLogo";
+
+const PAGE = "https://example.com/";
+
+// Build a fake fetch keyed by URL. `images` maps an absolute image URL to the
+// status/content-type it should return; anything else 404s.
+function stubFetch(html: string, images: Record<string, { status: number; ct?: string }>) {
+  vi.stubGlobal("fetch", async (input: unknown) => {
+    const url = String(input);
+    if (url === PAGE) {
+      return {
+        ok: true,
+        status: 200,
+        url,
+        headers: { get: (k: string) => (k.toLowerCase() === "content-type" ? "text/html; charset=utf-8" : null) },
+        body: null, // fetchHead falls back to res.text()
+        text: async () => html,
+      } as unknown as Response;
+    }
+    const img = images[url];
+    if (img) {
+      return {
+        ok: img.status < 400,
+        status: img.status,
+        url,
+        headers: { get: (k: string) => (k.toLowerCase() === "content-type" ? img.ct ?? "image/png" : null) },
+        body: { cancel: async () => {} },
+      } as unknown as Response;
+    }
+    return { ok: false, status: 404, url, headers: { get: () => null }, body: { cancel: async () => {} } } as unknown as Response;
+  });
+}
+
+afterEach(() => vi.unstubAllGlobals());
+
+describe("discoverLogoUrl", () => {
+  it("skips a broken candidate and returns the next one that actually loads", async () => {
+    const html = `<head>
+      <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple.png">
+      <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico">
+    </head>`;
+    // Apple icon (highest weight) 404s; favicon.ico is valid.
+    stubFetch(html, {
+      "https://example.com/apple.png": { status: 404 },
+      "https://example.com/favicon.ico": { status: 200, ct: "image/x-icon" },
+    });
+    expect(await discoverLogoUrl(PAGE)).toBe("https://example.com/favicon.ico");
+  });
+
+  it("prefers the highest-weight icon when it loads", async () => {
+    const html = `<head>
+      <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple.png">
+      <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico">
+    </head>`;
+    stubFetch(html, {
+      "https://example.com/apple.png": { status: 200, ct: "image/png" },
+      "https://example.com/favicon.ico": { status: 200, ct: "image/x-icon" },
+    });
+    expect(await discoverLogoUrl(PAGE)).toBe("https://example.com/apple.png");
+  });
+
+  it("returns null when no candidate resolves to an image", async () => {
+    const html = `<head><link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico"></head>`;
+    stubFetch(html, {}); // everything 404s, including /favicon.ico
+    expect(await discoverLogoUrl(PAGE)).toBeNull();
+  });
+
+  it("accepts an image served with a generic content-type by extension", async () => {
+    const html = `<head><link rel="icon" href="/logo.svg"></head>`;
+    stubFetch(html, {
+      "https://example.com/logo.svg": { status: 200, ct: "application/octet-stream" },
+      "https://example.com/favicon.ico": { status: 404 },
+    });
+    expect(await discoverLogoUrl(PAGE)).toBe("https://example.com/logo.svg");
+  });
+});