I can’t visibly see my taskbar icons

sorry for the bad quality picture but im using my desktop for the first time in almost a year and no matter what settings I turn on and off I can’t see the taskbar icons… i’ve tried looking at other forums but nothing I do seems to help. if I hover over the icons it shows the name of what’s pinned but even for example if I clicked on google chrome it opens up a completely new tab even if I already had one open.