Eric Westby
Level 4 (1,819 points)
Mac OS X

Q: 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

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Eric Westby

Q: Blurry/pixelated icons at random in Finder windows

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  • by Dolphbucs,

    Dolphbucs Dolphbucs Aug 15, 2011 7:03 PM in response to maulrat1967
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Aug 15, 2011 7:03 PM in response to maulrat1967

    I've noticed that also. Computer seems to run longer before the issue surfaces.

  • by KANahas,

    KANahas KANahas Aug 17, 2011 10:03 PM in response to Eric Westby
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 17, 2011 10:03 PM in response to Eric Westby

    Here, try this: http://bit.ly/nsUFw7

    I just created it today. It should flush the icon cache and restart Finder/Dock for you.

    Run it any time you get pixelated icons. I think I've worked out most of the bugs, but don't hesitate to contact me! (Click "Contact me!" at the bottom of the link I provided.)

     

     

     

    --KAN

  • by maulrat1967,

    maulrat1967 maulrat1967 Aug 18, 2011 9:18 AM in response to KANahas
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 9:18 AM in response to KANahas

    is this for Snow Leopard only?

  • by Dolphbucs,

    Dolphbucs Dolphbucs Aug 18, 2011 2:33 PM in response to maulrat1967
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 2:33 PM in response to maulrat1967

    It's worth a shot. This one would save you from logging out it seems. Course now that I want to try this out, the icons won't blur for me in Lion.  LOL

  • by VesperDEM,

    VesperDEM VesperDEM Aug 18, 2011 2:40 PM in response to Dolphbucs
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 2:40 PM in response to Dolphbucs

    Before the recent Lion update (10.7.1), I had been up for just over 15 days and no blurry icon issues at all. I really think they may just have fixed it. It's not fair that in order to fix this problem, people need to upgrade to Lion. Apple really should fix Snow Leopard. Assuming that doing a clean install of Snow Leopard doesn't fix the issue.

     

    Here's hoping that we don't see the blurry icon issue ever again!

  • by KANahas,

    KANahas KANahas Aug 18, 2011 2:58 PM in response to maulrat1967
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 2:58 PM in response to maulrat1967

    (Edit: RE: maulrat1967)

    Are you still having this issue in Lion (assuming you are running Lion)?

    Unless the icon cache was moved from /var/folders/*, it should theoretically work with Lion.

     

    Unfortunately, I will likely soon be upgrading to Lion, so I'm not sure how I will provide support for this... Perhaps a virtual installation of SL?

     

    --KAN

  • by KANahas,

    KANahas KANahas Aug 18, 2011 2:57 PM in response to VesperDEM
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 2:57 PM in response to VesperDEM

    (Edit: RE: VesperDEM)

    Very glad to hear this!  I was hoping it was fixed in Lion; even though this doesn't completely confirm it, it does seem likely that it was fixed. As I posted previously, if you do have any problems, this should theoretically correct it.  Good luck!

     

    --KAN

  • by VesperDEM,

    VesperDEM VesperDEM Aug 18, 2011 2:57 PM in response to KANahas
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 2:57 PM in response to KANahas

    Unfortunately, only Lion is allowed to virtualize. So testing Snow Leopard installations won't work under Parallels/VMWare.

     

    You could get an external drive, use SuperDuper! to make a bootable backup of your Snow Leopard install before upgrading to Lion. I still have my backup and can boot up into Snow Leopard when ever I want. It's a little slow, but for what it would be needed for, it might be worth considering.

  • by KANahas,

    KANahas KANahas Aug 18, 2011 3:02 PM in response to VesperDEM
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 3:02 PM in response to VesperDEM

    Really? That's unfortunate!

    There's some talk that it can be done illegitimately with VirtualBox 4.1.

    Not that I would do that or anything...

     

     

    --KAN

  • by maulrat1967,

    maulrat1967 maulrat1967 Aug 18, 2011 3:03 PM in response to KANahas
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 3:03 PM in response to KANahas

    the blurry icon issue continues in Lion for myself but it happens at a much less frequent rate than it did in SL ... but it still happens none-the-less .... and no your prog/automater workflow does not work in Lion ... that could be because some Automator commands have changed (which they have) or that the icon caches that your script points to have moved

  • by VesperDEM,

    VesperDEM VesperDEM Aug 18, 2011 3:05 PM in response to maulrat1967
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 3:05 PM in response to maulrat1967

    Just out of curiousity, did you do a clean install of Lion or update over the top of your Snow Leopard installation?

  • by KANahas,

    KANahas KANahas Aug 18, 2011 3:20 PM in response to maulrat1967
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2011 3:20 PM in response to maulrat1967

    maulrat1967 wrote:

     

    the blurry icon issue continues in Lion for myself but it happens at a much less frequent rate than it did in SL ... but it still happens none-the-less .... and no your prog/automater workflow does not work in Lion ... that could be because some Automator commands have changed (which they have) or that the icon caches that your script points to have moved

     

    That's pretty dissapointing.

     

    Out of curiosity, would one of you with Lion mind running this in Terminal for me?

     

    sudo find /var/folders -name *thumbnailcache*

    ...and if it returns "find: /var/folders: No such file or directory", please post the results of "sudo ls /var/" here.

     

     

    Hadn't heard about the changes to Automator though. I'll have to debug it again for Lion once I install it.

     

     

    --KAN

  • by Dolphbucs,

    Dolphbucs Dolphbucs Aug 20, 2011 8:28 AM in response to KANahas
    Level 1 (55 points)
    Aug 20, 2011 8:28 AM in response to KANahas

    The issue I have in Lion is that it keeps looking for a Growl action ( Growl action not found )

     

    Like Maulrat says though, at least not as much of a problem in Lion ... Logging in and out solves it easily

  • by KANahas,

    KANahas KANahas Aug 23, 2011 11:22 PM in response to Dolphbucs
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 23, 2011 11:22 PM in response to Dolphbucs

    Sorry, I forgot that not everyone has Growl. Duh. Stupid mistake...

    Anyway, I've updated the page (http://bit.ly/nsUFw7) to include a non-Growl version.

    Sorry for any inconvenience.

     

    --KAN

  • by maulrat1967,

    maulrat1967 maulrat1967 Aug 24, 2011 12:42 AM in response to KANahas
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Aug 24, 2011 12:42 AM in response to KANahas

    @KANahas

    heres the sudo cmd result in /var/

     

    /var/folders/bc/9y0jngmj19g7wfr2czy4_kzh0000gn/C/com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailca che

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