Blurry/pixelated icons at random in Finder windows

I finally got a reply to my bug report on this issue in Snow Leopard. I was asked to see if we have the same problem in Mountain Lion because they are not going to fix it in SL. Rather a bummer for those of us who need to stay with SL for whatever reason.

I have Mountain Lion and had the same issue, i resolved mine very easily. I removed the battery, pressed and held the power button for 20 seconds and rebooted the Macbook Pro. Ive had no issues since Sept. I don't have any extra software on my Mac either. I have Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom V3 and Digital Performer. I don't any other extra apps.

Hi there, any solution yet on this problem? I have a system which is completely updated - so I suppose Apple didn't fix it yet; in fact I had these issues since years, but it's worse now in Mountain Lion... No useful workaround known yet?

No fix so far, the only work around is to log out and then log back in again. This is the fastest way to temporarily fix it. In my case it holds until a restart and then I have to log out again or restart, either will work.

Haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know if this has been posted or not, but I fixed it by doing the following:

1. Go to your system caches folder (in finder press cmd-shift-G, then enter ~/Library/Caches, or press option while clicking the 'Go' menu in finder, select 'Library' then go to the caches subfolder)
2. Move com.apple.dock.db and com.apple.dock.plist to the desktop or some other temporary folder
3. Reboot
4. Your dock should be reset to a generic configuration and the icons fixed.
5. Drag the above files back to the caches folder and reboot again.
6. If you like, you can skip step 5 and simply re-configure the dock how you want it.

Hope this helps.

Demjan's May 2012 recommendation worked. I used EasyFind to get the Invisible "thumbnails.data" file and deleted it, shut down and started up, and everything's nice and clean.

From Demjan's post:

". . . Well, I thought only that was the solution; obviously not.

"Here are the exact steps

1. Download Find Any File app (http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/)
2. Install and open the app.
3. Search for " thumbnails.data "
4. Delete that file.
5. Open system preferences and go to Display
6. Change the resolution to the lowest possible and back to normal
7. Log out and back in . . ."

I have neither com.apple.dock.db, neither com.apple.dock.plist in my user library cache folder 😕 ...

Where are Apple developers to fix this ... making a 10.9, another extra charged buged OS ? 😟

And generaly where are Apple Developers (iLife, iWorks, Aperture) ...

You can use this to find the files : http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

You're right, there are big issues with Apple!

The future is bleak for the world, including the small world of computing.😟

Found them (with easyfind) in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder !

This worked for me!! Thanks had been driving me nuts for past few weeks.

Cheers

For my part, nothing works in time ... 😢

And 10.8.3 update did nothing.

Are we condamned to see 512px / 1024px icons at 48px or less ??? 😠

Yes.

According to the reply I got from Apple last year concering the bug report I filed on this, they're aware of it but it will not be fixed in Snow Leopard.

Notary Sojak wrote:

Yes.

According to the reply I got from Apple last year concering the bug report I filed on this, they're aware of it but it will not be fixed in Snow Leopard.

But Djim's says that it's not fixed in 10.8.3. What a shame of an OS.

FWIW, 10.8.3 changed nothing for me either. I think it's two things we're discussing here: 1) blurry icon on -existing- files (which means the icon is recorded (as blurry[actually the worng size]) in one of several places and 2) what -causes- the icon to be wrong-sized in the first place.

As for #2, that could have to do with a cache, similar to #1. In my situation, I notice the issue when I mount a DMG. If the icon is blurry on the DMG, it will be blurry on my drive.

Therefore, (again, at least for me) the trick is to make sure I don't install software when its icon is ill-sized.

To do that, I have to use MLCC (Mountain Lion Cache Cleaner). Using it, I first turn off spotlight, and then I relaunch the system daemons. Both are found under the system menu. I have to do this after every reboot, so I've put MLCC into my startup items.

Tedious, but that does it 100% of the time.

Equally, that doesn't mean it will -stay- that way through an entire session, but mostly does. That is, there are things I can do that will trigger it all over again. I -think- that accessing the machine via Remote Access triggers it; certainly some installer packages trigger it. In this case, unfortunately merely taking the two steps in MLCC doens't fix it; I have to reboot and do the two steps to cure it again.

If I don't run installers during the day, the fix seems to stick most of the time.

FWIW

Same here, blurry icons on some files, Disk Images with new software: blurry or, worde, even NO icon at all. Cahes deleted, sometimes work - after a few days: same old problem, blurry, pixelated icons.

10.8.3 did not solve anything for me...