Garbled image preview in Finder

[esskay]

Has anyone seen this happen? Seemingly randomly, sometimes image preview in Finder becomes garbled. Sometimes if I close the Finder windows and open new ones, it goes back to normal. Sometimes, it stays garbled until I try "killall Finder" in Terminal. Sometimes, I give up and go do something else and eventually come back and it's fine again.

Would appreciate any suggestions or ideas from anyone. It's beyond annoying, it makes it hard to get work done.

Here's a screenshot:

 

[BrianBaughn]

That might be a corrupt Spotlight database but I'm not sure.

I've seen it on my computer. It was also happening on some video files. My computer had also become very sluggish when in the open/save dialog. They're separate issues...I would assume...but I ended up reinstalling the OS and things have been great ever since.

 

[esskay]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll google corrupted Spotlight databases, though that example was from browsing a CF card that I had just mounted, not my hard drive so I wouldn't have suspected Spotlight.

I used to run Mountain Lion, which was rock solid — fast, reliable, hardly ever had strange issues. Ever since I updated to Yosemite (in place, not a fresh install), Finder seems to have lags, have strange problems from time to time... I really wanted to avoid having to do a fresh install because of all the customizations/etc that I've done (and can barely remember), but maybe I'll have to bite the bullet one of these days. Or maybe I'll just wait for El Capitan and do a fresh install then...?

 

[m4v3r1ck]

Have you ever tried a clean install using Migration Assistant? A great way to migrate all users / applications / settings / tweaks! I do that all the time when I perform a clean install of OS X:

1. I do a cleanup on my OS SSD with ONYX
2. Disable as much tweak apps such as Trim Enabler (in 10.10.4 not needed anymore) etc.
3. Make a good clean clone with Carbon Copy Cloner.
4. Clean install OS X.
5. Use MA to restore users/applications/settings.

Up-and-running in 'no-time' whilst sitting back downstairs and have a cup of coffee! ;-)

Perhaps you could try that with OS X 10.10.4?

Good luck!

Cheers

 

[esskay]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into that. At this rate, it'll drive me insane and I won't be able to wait much longer!

 

[m4v3r1ck]

NOTE!: when performing a cleanup with ONYX, please read very careful what cleaning options you are enabling ONYX to perform.

Good luck!

Cheers

 

[DVA_Mac]

That might be a corrupt Spotlight database but I'm not sure.

I've seen it on my computer. It was also happening on some video files. My computer had also become very sluggish when in the open/save dialog. They're separate issues...I would assume...but I ended up reinstalling the OS and things have been great ever since.

I have the same problem on 10.9.5 as of today. So, did you ever figure out the cause and the fix?

 

[BrianBaughn]

I have the same problem on 10.9.5 as of today. So, did you ever figure out the cause and the fix?

No. Moved on to El Capitan a while back.

 

[grahamperrin]

screenshot

That's symptomatic of corruption. An application might sometimes, not always, deal gracefully with corrupted data. The effect of corruption, on a JPEG, was archetypal in the early days of ZFS-based Z-410 Storage, the forerunner to ZEVO; ZFS is ideal for detection of corruption.

ZEVO is no longer available to the public and until Apple releases Apple File System, the surest way for Mac users to avoid unknown corruption may be to use OpenZFS on OS X.

@esskay if the disk is silently failing, it may be prudent to not use it until you have performed a reliable backup. Ideally, a backup that will not cause silent pruning of older backup data; bear in mind, some of your recent backups may be of data that was corrupt.

 

[esskay]

Sorry I missed the bumps on this thread. Like Brian, I also moved on to El Capitan. I did a clean install from scratch, reinstalled all apps/etc. I've never experienced a similar problem since. And before I switched, I was never able to figure out or solve the problem.