Fuzzy Icons

All too often icons in Finder begin to display very pixelated (at all resolutions & in both icon view & cover flow). This happens only to folder icons that I created on my own from image files. They worked like a charm in Tiger and Leopard, but Snow Leopard chokes on them.

One really odd thing is that one or two will show up fuzzy... then five... pretty soon all of them. Kind of like a zombie movie.

Restarting Finder fixes this problem, but it soon starts again.

Anyone else have this problem?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 3, 2009 7:01 AM

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32 replies

Sep 13, 2009 8:41 PM in response to Carolyn Samit

I'm afraid that is only a temporary solution. It fixes the problem for a short while but the problem resurfaces. It's as though there is a cache somewhere that is allocated a certain amount of HD space ( or maybe even an amount of RAM ) for storing the new 512 pixel icons and once that limit is reached you get the pixelated icons. And, supporting my theory, it seems to happen quicker, the larger you have displayed your icons. This even occurs with dock icons sometimes.

I had been restarting the finder to handle this until I read this post. I tried deleting the plist and restarting my Mac and it did work ... but not any better than simply quitting finder and restarting it.

I have sent a feedback to Apple about this with all my data, it's obviously a bug of some kind.

Sep 14, 2009 7:58 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

One additional observation .... if you leave the finder window open, you will notice that about 3 - 5 seconds after you delete the finder plist file, it will regenerate. If you then check your finder prefs you will see that only some of the finder prefs have been reset. So basically, deleting the finder plist will not generate a totally new plist file upon reboot.

So, I think with deleting the plist file and rebooting, it is only the rebooting which is doing anything to help. In support of this finding many in other threads have been saying they are experiencing this issue even on a clean install where no additional apps have been installed.

I have noticed that there are two cache folders in /user/library/caches relating to Quicklook. I am going to try deleting those caches and reboot to see if that helps.

Sep 14, 2009 8:08 AM in response to Dolphbucs

I also have another hunch. If the Quicklook caches don't work, I am going to try NOT using the sider in the finder window, just the slider in View Options .... perhaps there is a glitch in the finder slider that is corrupting something.

One other note. I do use a lot of rar files and zip files ( cbr and cbz to be exact which are nothing more than rar and zip files comprised of jpeg images ) perhaps the way finder generates the thumbnails of these files is what triggers the issue.

Sep 19, 2009 3:23 AM in response to Randall Vaughn-Ward

THIS QUESTION HAS NOT BEEN ANSWERED UNTIL APPLE FIXES!

After installing Snow Leopard SOME of the default system folder icons show up "fuzzy" (like, "Pictures," "Users," "Movies," etc). Its only some of them and it does not change over time...

I can understand why some of my personal customized icons are "fuzzy," though some are fine, and some disappear -- but I've fiddled with them -- BUT, the system generated ones?!?!?

UNACCEPTABLE! And quite (still) a mystery... Hence, this question is not answered -- please UNanswer it or I will start a new thread...

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Fuzzy Icons

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