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Eric Westby Author

Level 4

1,829 points

Blurry/pixelated icons at random in Finder windows

Just upgraded my MBP (C2D, 3GB RAM) to SL, went smoothly. I'm seeing a lot of blurry icons in the Finder, though, seemingly at random. I'll open a window and about half the icons will be essentially large versions of the 16x16 icon, rather than sharp icons at the appropriate size. Changing the icon size via the new slider just enlarges the blurry icon, it doesn't increase the resolution.

It goes without saying that I'm seeing this on programs, files, and folders for which high-resolution icons is available.

I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere. Is it a common problem? Surely it'll be addressed in a forthcoming update, but I wonder how rare it is. The only oddball thing about my system is that I have an older ADC-connected 23" Apple Cinema Display monitor connected to the DVI port via Apple's behemoth of a DVI->ADC adapter.

Thanks,
Eric.

MacBook Pro, 15", 2.33GHz Intel, 3GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6), 23" ACD, 1TB WD HDD

Posted on Aug 28, 2009 9:01 PM

481 replies

ddoughty

Level 1

28 points

Oct 1, 2009 7:37 PM in response to Eric Westby

I, too, started seeing blurry icons after the SL upgrade. Interestingly, I have multiple user accounts on my Mac and the different user accounts have different blurry icons. iTunes looks great on one; blurry on mine. Rebooting has thus far had no effect. So for what it's worth this would seem to be a per-user issue.

Oct 2, 2009 11:20 AM in response to ddoughty

I don't think it is a per user issue .... just that different icons are affected each time the symptoms occur. Unless you mean that the thing that is being corrupted is within the individual user acct. That does appear to be the case. Curious though that a reboot doesn't cure the issue for you at least temporarily. On my system , like I have stated, even quitting finder and relaunching that cures the problem for a little while.

ZTech

Level 1

0 points

Oct 2, 2009 3:31 PM in response to Dolphbucs

No, Im just saying that my screen has lower pixel-age so the pixelated icons won't show up

Oct 2, 2009 8:46 PM in response to ZTech

ZTech wrote:
No, Im just saying that my screen has lower pixel-age so the pixelated icons won't show up

ZTech ... what are you responding to?

1) My last comment was not in response to one of your posts

2) If you do feel the need to respond to something in a thread this size, it is helpful if you quote the text you are referring to so that others know what you are talking about

3) What the heck is "pixel-age" ? I've been studying computers since 1980 and I've never heard that term. This is the second time you have posted something "cryptic" in this thread. You posted earlier that you thought maybe this issue had something to do with 'the icon cache". I asked you twice which file or folder you were talking about and then you finally responded by saying you really didn't know what the cause was but that SL should be "better". Now you post again with another term that seems to make no sense. This is a thread concerning a serious issue which seems to be affecting many people ... please try to keep this thread on track. Thank You.

Oct 9, 2009 2:58 AM in response to Eric Westby

Been a week since the last post, so I'm presuming there's no fix yet.

Eric Westby Author

Level 4

1,829 points

Oct 9, 2009 8:13 AM in response to mogwai ahoy

I fear we're going to have to wait for 10.6.2 for a fix.

AgentTy

Level 1

0 points

Oct 14, 2009 1:04 PM in response to Eric Westby

Add me to this list too... This is one of several running issues I am having with Snow Leopard, fortunately this is only a minor annoyance that I can live with.... but really shouldn't this have been caught in SL beta testing phase?

Has anybody sent this to Apple Feedback yet? I hear that they don't actually watch these forums for problems to fix.

Oct 14, 2009 1:16 PM in response to AgentTy

Yes, I myself have sent a message to Apple about this issue, in fact several updating them on things we have brought up in the forum in hopes that it will help them trouble shoot the issue.

Oct 21, 2009 3:43 AM in response to AgentTy

I sent a bug report about the pixelated/blurry icons issue twice actually within the last month to Apple Feedback .... I'm just guessing here, but what I've read about the fixes in 10.6.2 it sounds like this issue may be addressed with it.

This along with a few other issues have made it the first time that I've ever downgraded to a previous system as I'm back using 10.5.8 again.

Oct 21, 2009 3:49 AM in response to maulrat1967

I dont know how I forgot to mention this but ever since I downgraded to 10.5.8 I've actually run into the pixelated/blurry icon problem twice ... which is way less than the 10-20 times a day I used to experience using snow but still I never had this problem prior to SL ... what would cause this to happen in regular Leopard now is beyond me.

Eric Westby Author

Level 4

1,829 points

Oct 22, 2009 12:57 PM in response to maulrat1967

How exactly did you downgrade to 10.5.8? Restored from bootable clone? A full hard drive wipe followed by a Time Machine restore? Or did you try the unsupported method of doing a Leopard Archive and Install over your Snow Leopard system?

If you used the last method, I'd say the blurred icon issue is indicative of some Snow Leopard libraries that were unexpectedly retained by the system.

If one of the first two methods, that is truly unusual, given that no one ever reported the problem until 10.6.0 came out!

Oct 23, 2009 2:45 PM in response to Eric Westby

I did an Archive and Install ... I had no idea it was unsupported though. I just figured there wouldnt be a problem since it moved all sytem related files into a "Previous System" folder (just like when I went from Tiger to Leopard). Thats why I thought it was so odd. Oh well, 10.6.2 should be out within the coming week and hopefully that should fix the issue for all of us that are experiencing this.

Eric Westby Author

Level 4

1,829 points

Oct 23, 2009 3:01 PM in response to maulrat1967

maulrat1967 wrote:
I did an Archive and Install ... I had no idea it was unsupported though. I just figured there wouldnt be a problem since it moved all sytem related files into a "Previous System" folder (just like when I went from Tiger to Leopard).

It only works as advertised when going forward, say from 10.4 to 10.5, or backward over a minor update, like 10.6.1 to 10.6.0. But when going backward over a major revision, the version checker can leave some newer files in place, causing weirdness like this.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2597

Oct 23, 2009 6:45 PM in response to Eric Westby

thanks for the link Eric ... albeit its too late now ... but I'm glad I now know. Do you think going back to 10.6 (once 10.6.2 is released) should cause any problems? The only problem I've had at all with the unsupported downgrade is the issue I mentioned about the blurry icons happening twice. As I really don't want to do to a full wipe of my HD if I dont have to.

And I'll just leave it at that as I dont want to threadjack this thread into my downgrade/upgrade issues.

Thanks so much again.

Eric Westby Author

Level 4

1,829 points

Oct 23, 2009 7:43 PM in response to maulrat1967

I couldn't definitively say, though intuitively it seems that installing 10.6.0 and finally the 10.6.2 combo updater should wipe clean any old frameworks and libraries left in place by old installations. But you'll never know until you try.

Blurry/pixelated icons at random in Finder windows