blurred textures in inventory, why?

[Sylvia Wasp]

I've seen this happen on and off over the years and never heard of a good explanation, so here goes ...  

Basically, pictures (textures) that I've uploaded into inventory, (especially those I use in my profile), just randomly sometimes show up as blurred.  They never resolve into an image.  I've tried rebooting, changing graphics settings and all the typical things, but it isn't that.  I have a good computer, I run on mostly Max settings etc.  It's as if the server is just storing a low-res version and has dispensed with the actual file.  

This is NOT a transient problem.  Once a texture gets blurred out, there seems no fixing for it.  It never "comes back."  I can download this textures out of SL and they show up as blurred on my desktop.

It seems SL is just randomly scr*wing up my textures and no one seems to know why or how or what to do about it.  

[Chic Aeon]

No answer. They appear to get corrupted in the database. They can sometimes be FINE on an object still but the texture itself is no longer good. Always good to keep copies of ALL your textures on your computer  --- and of course a backup of the files also.  

 

Also, like other assets, textures can mysteriously disappear from the complete database (not just your inventory). So sending important ones to an alt doesn't help :D.   

[Sylvia Wasp]

12 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

No answer. They appear to get corrupted in the database. They can sometimes be FINE on an object still but the texture itself is no longer good. Always good to keep copies of ALL your textures on your computer  --- and of course a backup of the files also.  

 

Also, like other assets, textures can mysteriously disappear from the complete database (not just your inventory). So sending important ones to an alt doesn't help :D.   

thanks Chic, I was worried that was the answer, but thanks anyway  

Seems to happen way more often with TGA's too for what it's worth.

[Nova Convair]

This happens with a corrupt database - which I encountered only once in all that years - If you have that often I seriously doubt it in your case.

This happens too with a corrupt cache. Since LL switched to transfer by http (a few years ago) that didn't happen anymore for me. By my opinion only a defective computer can cause regular cache corruption or a software that manipulates cache entries like a virus or an Anti-Virus software.

Maybe clear cache and see if that makes a difference once everything is reloaded. But without knowing the cause nobody knows if teh same files get teh same corruption that way.

[Nalates Urriah]

I seriously doubt the image is corrupt on the SL side. It is far more likely your viewer has messed it up. To test that ask others how they see the image and try another brand of viewer, which will use a separate cache.

When you download the image to desktop the viewer pulls a previously downloaded image from the local cache. So, try the download to desktop from a different viewer.

The SL side stores images in JPG2000 format. If you are curious you can read about the format and how it works. It is pretty neat.

Basically several levels of resolution are saved in the same JPG2000 file. The viewer requests the level it needs. A sign that is 50x50 pixels on your screen will generate a request for a small low rez image from the maybe 1024x1024 file. This reduces the data load and time needed to rez the sign. But, not all viewers use the Kakadu library that handles the JPG2000 format. It is proprietary. The Lab and Firestorm are the only two viewers that pay to use the Kakadu library, AFAIK. So, there are images getting uploaded that are not 100.00% compatible and can cause problems with the download.

So, there are images in the SL database that are questionable... or not perfectly compatible. However, since Firestorm is used by 75+/-% of users and the Linden viewer by 20+% of users the number of questionable images is small. Which leads to the point, most image problems are local to a computer.