Q: Blurry/pixelated icons at random in Finder windows

I've made it a practice to run Icon Cache Cleaner (mentioned early in this thread) before opening any .dmg.  For months now, this practice results in no new fuzzy icons.  But - it doesn't fix old fuzzies.

Has anyone taken their computer to an Apple store and met wiht an Apple genius and asked them what is causing this and asked the to fix it?

This fixed all but one icon for me.

I'm on Mountain Lion and this is the first time I experienced this issue.

Well, I thought I had solved it, but no....

Symptom:

Everytime I mount a .dmg file to install software, the application icon is displayed at low-rez. Unfortunately, when I copy the file to my drive, it's the low-rez icon that is copied as well.

Driving me crazy.

Tested with a new user, and everything is fine, so it's something with my user.

In my user folder, I:

first (after a good clone, of course) I deleted all the com.apple.(name).plist preference files.

Reboot: No change.

Then I trashed all the user caches.

Reboot: No change.

Then I replaced the entire preferences folder with the one from the new user.

Reboot: No change.

So I deleted the application support folder. (49GB !)

Reboot: No change.

Finally I deleted everything in the entire ~/library folder except the things that Apple required to be present.

Reboot: No change.

That, of course, leaves only things outside of the ~/library folder.

There are no ~startup items nor launch daemons.

At this point, I'm lost.

I think apple is aware of this issue.

I filed a bug report, including screenshots, at

https://bugreport.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/RadarWeb.woa/wa/signIn

and I got

"This is a follow up to Bug ID# 12045607. This bug has been closed as a Duplicate. The issue is being tracked under the original Bug ID# 10933698".

For what I understand, the MORE people reports this bug, the higher priority it will get.

For this reason, I urge anybody out there with this blurry icon bug issue, to file a bug report at the address above. The more, the better.

This is clearly an OS bug, and there is nothing an end user can do to permanently fix it.

So please, go ahead and write to apple, filing your bug report! Let's us be heard!

Well, I spent 11 hours on this yesterday.

I determined it wasn't anything in ~/Library/Application support, but I did find a 100% repeatable issue with a preference file. If if was in, blurry icons; out - no blurry icons. Got really excited... but read on. (The file was com.apple.proapps.plist, but I don't think that's important.)

Carefully replaced things are rebooted. (I must have rebooted 150 times yesterday.) And the situation was good... for a few minutes.

I'll cut to the chase here: it seems that right after I start (now that the corrupt plist is out) everything is fine. Then, when I launch an application, everything is fine. Launch the next application... and the fuzzy icons are back.

What's interesting is that it does not make any difference -what- those two applications are... any two will do.

So, I think the problem is complex:  something is corrupting a (perhaps random) Apple preference file. If that happens, I get low-rez icons all the time.

Then there's an apparent limit of the number of things running which triggers it. Exceed that certain number, and the problem returns.

Now, is that because some other plist got smacked? I dunno.

FWIW, during all my testing yesterday, I got my suspicions raised by a few things, but -without any proof- (YMMV, etc) and I considered the OSAX scripting addition installed by Default Folder. I also considered Menu Meters (since it links into disk activity.)

On startup (yes: I pulled these and then returned them when I didn't see any difference) I also have Chronosync scheduler; DropBox; Contour Shuttle; Kensington TrackballWorks and the Default Folder helper.

So:

1) I'm still affected by it.

2) I think two or more things are interacting to cause it.

3) I think that #2 can cause a corruption in a .plist file that will make the low-rez display "permanent."

4) since it only happens for me if some threshold number of running apps must be hit, I'd wonder about the Dock, too.

This is a non-trivial problem, although I strongly suspect that it's third-party software that is either a) buggy, or b) not playing nice.

Dear Tracy,

thanks for your efforts.

Among the many things you mentioned, I use default folder and dropbox... Maybe this might help tracking down the triggering software...

On my girlfriend's mac there is dropbox, but not default folder... and she doesn't have this issue... but if, as you said, it is caused by an interaction...

Both my wife & I use DefaultFolder - it's the only thing we found that gives us the folder-bounce-back capability of Boomerang we came to rely on from the pre-X days.

Do you use any applications like GraphicConverter that create custom previews for images? The custom previews (when they'e not fuzzy, pixelated or missing) make the display of a folder full of graphics populate much quicker - especially if it's a shared network folder. We find a folder of a few hundred images whose previews have been stripped can take up to a couple of minutes to display their icons in the Finder.

I'm facing also this problem with blurry, pixelated and disappearing icons in Mountain Lion 10.8.1. It happens even in a new install from zero.

10.8.2 and the blurry icons are still there. Great OS.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/capturadepantalla201209u.jpg/

yeah... they had most urgent bug to fix (ie, battery time) to bother with this aestethic bug...

Again, I urge everybody to file a bug report to apple.

One more thing: why don't we try to check our software and see what we have in common?

Everybody with this bug, might post running 3rd party daemon, startupitems, menubar items, preference panels and so on, so that we can compare what we use in common and try to narrow down the possible cause(s) of the problem?

Who is going to agree?

It happens even in a new OS install, without any add-on.

I filed a bug report and got a reply from Apple saying that it's a duplicated report:

This is a follow up to Bug ID# 12266182. This bug has been closed as a Duplicate. The issue is being tracked under the original Bug ID# 10933698 which is also listed in the Related Problem section of your bug report. To check the status of the original bug report, please visit the Related Problem section of the Problem Detail view of your closed duplicate bug.

Hi David...

r u sure? I mean, even after a fresh install? If that's the case, really there is not much we can do...

When I filed the bug report, I got the same kind of message... they already know about it.

But the only whey they can PRIORITIZE the solution of this bug, and let it climb up in the list of the things to fix, is to keep filing reports... that's the way it works, and that's why I keep urging people with this bug, to do the same.

Thanks for the info.

donazipe wrote:

 

Hi David...

r u sure? I mean, even after a fresh install? If that's the case, really there is not much we can do...

Yes. i was having anther problem with .avi and .wmv movies and I decided to try a clean installation on another disk to test Perian, Flip4Mac, Divx, etc. Right after the installation of 10.8.1 I opened the Perian DMG to install it and  the Perian icon appeared pixelated. Opening that DMG was the first thing I did after installing the OS.

It was in a MacPro 2010 with 4 internal disks (Main, Time Machine, Storage and a fourth one for 10.6.8 just in case I want to have the work done instead of dealing with a clunky interface) and 15GB of RAM.

I never had this problem with any prior OS version.

Some of the icons even disappear. See "Internet y comunicaciones"

And in get info, the icon is seen as an UNIX file.

Confusingly, then, I can get the problem to go away if I create a new user, and sign in using that user... indicating that it's something in the user folder.

So before we list out everything we have, perhaps a good place to start would be to see if that's true for others as well: make a new user and log in with that user, and see if the problem remains.