diff --git a/apps/api/src/favorites/favorites.service.ts b/apps/api/src/favorites/favorites.service.ts
index 63b85c7..3b60e99 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/favorites/favorites.service.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/favorites/favorites.service.ts
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ import {
 import { PrismaService } from '../prisma/prisma.service';
 import { CreateFavoriteDto } from './dto/create-favorite.dto';
 import { UpdateFavoriteDto } from './dto/update-favorite.dto';
-import { IconDiscoveryService } from './icon-discovery.service';
+import { IconDiscoveryService, normalizeUrl } from './icon-discovery.service';
 
 /**
  * Service for managing per-user, per-widget favorite links.
@@ -42,11 +42,14 @@ export class FavoritesService {
    * If iconUrl is not provided, triggers server-side icon discovery with SSRF protection.
    */
   async create(userId: string, tenantId: string, dto: CreateFavoriteDto) {
+    // Normalize so a scheme-less entry like "ctl.de" is stored (and discovered)
+    // as "https://ctl.de" — otherwise the link and icon discovery both break.
+    const url = normalizeUrl(dto.url);
     let iconUrl = dto.iconUrl ?? null;
 
     // Server-side icon discovery (D-05) — only when caller did not supply an icon
     if (!iconUrl) {
-      iconUrl = await this.iconDiscovery.discoverFavoriteIconUrl(dto.url);
+      iconUrl = await this.iconDiscovery.discoverFavoriteIconUrl(url);
     }
 
     return this.prisma.favoriteLink.create({
@@ -55,7 +58,7 @@ export class FavoritesService {
         tenantId,
         widgetId: dto.widgetId,
         title: dto.title,
-        url: dto.url,
+        url,
         iconUrl,
         position: dto.position ?? 0,
       },
@@ -77,10 +80,26 @@ export class FavoritesService {
     const data: Record<string, unknown> = {};
 
     if (dto.title !== undefined) data.title = dto.title;
-    if (dto.url !== undefined) data.url = dto.url;
-    if ('iconUrl' in dto) data.iconUrl = dto.iconUrl; // Allows explicit null
+
+    const normalizedUrl =
+      dto.url !== undefined ? normalizeUrl(dto.url) : undefined;
+    if (normalizedUrl !== undefined) data.url = normalizedUrl;
+
     if (dto.position !== undefined) data.position = dto.position;
 
+    if ('iconUrl' in dto) {
+      if (dto.iconUrl) {
+        // Explicit icon URL supplied — respect it as-is.
+        data.iconUrl = dto.iconUrl;
+      } else {
+        // Icon cleared (empty/null) — re-run discovery against the effective
+        // (new or existing) url so editing a broken favorite repairs its icon.
+        const effectiveUrl = normalizedUrl ?? link.url;
+        data.iconUrl =
+          await this.iconDiscovery.discoverFavoriteIconUrl(effectiveUrl);
+      }
+    }
+
     return this.prisma.favoriteLink.update({
       where: { id },
       data,
diff --git a/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.spec.ts b/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.spec.ts
index c1ea368..094c99a 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.spec.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.spec.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 import { afterEach, describe, expect, it, vi } from 'vitest';
-import { IconDiscoveryService, isPublicHttpUrl } from './icon-discovery.service';
+import {
+  IconDiscoveryService,
+  isPublicHttpUrl,
+  normalizeUrl,
+} from './icon-discovery.service';
 
 function mockResponse(options: {
   contentType?: string;
@@ -46,6 +50,71 @@ describe('isPublicHttpUrl', () => {
   });
 });
 
+describe('normalizeUrl', () => {
+  it('prepends https:// to a scheme-less host', () => {
+    expect(normalizeUrl('ctl.de')).toBe('https://ctl.de');
+    expect(normalizeUrl('www.ctl.de/path')).toBe('https://www.ctl.de/path');
+  });
+
+  it('leaves an existing scheme untouched', () => {
+    expect(normalizeUrl('http://ctl.de')).toBe('http://ctl.de');
+    expect(normalizeUrl('https://ctl.de')).toBe('https://ctl.de');
+  });
+
+  it('trims surrounding whitespace', () => {
+    expect(normalizeUrl('  ctl.de  ')).toBe('https://ctl.de');
+  });
+
+  it('returns empty string unchanged', () => {
+    expect(normalizeUrl('   ')).toBe('');
+  });
+});
+
+describe('IconDiscoveryService.discoverFavoriteIconUrl', () => {
+  afterEach(() => {
+    vi.restoreAllMocks();
+    vi.unstubAllGlobals();
+  });
+
+  it('extracts the apple-touch-icon from page HTML', async () => {
+    const html = `<html><head>
+      <link rel="icon" href="https://ctl.de/fav-32.jpg" sizes="32x32" />
+      <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="https://ctl.de/apple-180.jpg" />
+    </head></html>`;
+    vi.stubGlobal(
+      'fetch',
+      vi.fn().mockResolvedValue({
+        ok: true,
+        status: 200,
+        headers: {
+          get: (n: string) =>
+            n.toLowerCase() === 'content-type'
+              ? 'text/html; charset=utf-8'
+              : null,
+        },
+        text: async () => html,
+      }),
+    );
+
+    const service = new IconDiscoveryService();
+    // Public IP avoids a real DNS lookup in the SSRF guard.
+    const icon = await service.discoverFavoriteIconUrl('http://8.8.8.8');
+
+    expect(icon).toBe('https://ctl.de/apple-180.jpg');
+  });
+
+  it('normalizes a scheme-less URL so the fallback is absolute, not "/favicon.ico"', async () => {
+    // fetch fails → discovery falls back. The fallback must be an absolute
+    // https origin URL, not the broken relative path that produced the bug.
+    vi.stubGlobal('fetch', vi.fn().mockRejectedValue(new Error('network')));
+
+    const service = new IconDiscoveryService();
+    const icon = await service.discoverFavoriteIconUrl('ctl.de');
+
+    expect(icon).toBe('https://ctl.de/favicon.ico');
+  });
+});
+
 describe('IconDiscoveryService.fetchIconBytes', () => {
   afterEach(() => {
     vi.restoreAllMocks();
diff --git a/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.ts b/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.ts
index b73f6e8..33fed34 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/favorites/icon-discovery.service.ts
@@ -124,6 +124,21 @@ export async function isPublicHttpUrl(url: URL): Promise<boolean> {
   }
 }
 
+/**
+ * Normalize a user-entered site URL by prepending https:// when no scheme is
+ * present, so "ctl.de" becomes "https://ctl.de". Without this, `new URL()`
+ * throws on a bare host and icon discovery silently falls back to a broken
+ * relative "/favicon.ico" (which then 502s through the icon proxy and the
+ * widget shows the first-letter placeholder instead of the real favicon).
+ */
+export function normalizeUrl(raw: string): string {
+  const trimmed = raw.trim();
+  if (!trimmed) return trimmed;
+  // Already has a scheme (http://, https://, ftp://, ...) — leave untouched.
+  if (/^[a-z][a-z0-9+.-]*:\/\//i.test(trimmed)) return trimmed;
+  return `https://${trimmed}`;
+}
+
 function getOriginFaviconUrl(pageUrl: string): string {
   try {
     const url = new URL(pageUrl);
@@ -301,10 +316,11 @@ export class IconDiscoveryService {
    * private IP ranges, blocked hostnames, and forced-proxy vectors (T-08-05).
    */
   async discoverFavoriteIconUrl(pageUrl: string): Promise<string> {
-    const fallback = getOriginFaviconUrl(pageUrl);
+    const normalized = normalizeUrl(pageUrl);
+    const fallback = getOriginFaviconUrl(normalized);
 
     try {
-      const url = new URL(pageUrl);
+      const url = new URL(normalized);
       const htmlResult = await fetchHtml(url);
 
       if (!htmlResult) return fallback;