Preview shows corrupted images but they look okay when opened with another app... This is off a shared drive

Question

Preview shows corrupted images but they look okay when opened with another app... This is off a shared drive

Ever since upgrading to Sonoma, Preview has consistently shown corrupted images off my NAS, however the images are not corrupted. They show up perfectly normal when I open them in another app. I don't understand how this is possible because preview shows images off my Mac normally. The corruption of the images is constant so opening the same image shows the same corruption, which makes me feel like Preview has made a cache of the images. None of this makes sense. Windows shows the images correctly. Previous MacOS was able to show them correctly. and this hasn't resolved with multiple updates of 14.0 through 14.1.2.

I have no issues playing videos and opening files off the NAS otherwise just with the Preview App

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.1

Posted on Dec 1, 2023 8:16 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Shahriar Farkhan Author

Level 1

57 points

Dec 11, 2023 2:16 PM in response to stoobloo

I figured it out with a little troubleshooting and now I have to have it escalated to Apple's higher tier support. The issue is SMB (Samba) support. Preview works perfectly and images appear properly if I connect with AFP but not Samba. I tried lowering the Samba from 3 to 2.1, then 2 but Preview consistently corrupts the image. No other app does this. I am gonna respond to them and let them know. I read that MacOS 14 has depreciated AFP support and now uses the Samba standard but the Apple Customer Service person couldn't tell me the version of Samba they support so I just tried all of them, not 1 and nothing made a difference. SMB 3 has a huge performance improvement so being able to use that for files is nice and it works fine. Only preview sucks.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,473 points

Dec 2, 2023 12:57 AM in response to Shahriar Farkhan

What is the file format of the images on the NAS? And which app can show them correctly?

Preview can only show image files in a format supported by your currently installed version of Mac OS. Some older image formats have been become deprecated by the upgrade to Catalina, also some collar sync profiles are no longer supported. Third party apps may still be able to open items in a legacy format, that Preview *** no longer handle.

Are you saying, that you can open the same images in Preview, if you copy them to the internal drive of your Mac, it may be a problem with the file system format of your NAS. preview may not be able to open image files correctly, if the file system format is not MacOS Extended (journaled) or APFS, and if the format is case-sensitive. This can be causing problems with files in a container format.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

200,473 points

Dec 2, 2023 1:18 PM in response to Shahriar Farkhan

As it is only happening for images JPEGs on the NAS run a hardware test on the NAS, just to be sure, that there is no issue with the drive. and make sure, you have a current and working backup.

And I would check for common properties of the JPEGs that cannot be opened by Preview. Perhaps they have been edited in a third-party app or are having a different color sync profile embedded that theJPEGs that are working.

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Answer 4

Dec 3, 2023 12:46 AM in response to Shahriar Farkhan

Sorry for asking the obvious, but does safe-boot help?

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Answer 5

Dec 2, 2023 12:37 PM in response to léonie

What is the file format of the images on the NAS? JPG
And which app can show them correctly? If I drop the image into Firefox or Chrome, they render correctly. If I drag them onto my desktop, and open them with Preview, they show up correctly. On my PC, the Windows Image app opens them properly, along with GIMP.
The issue is that some JPG images from the same set show up properly in Preview so I know it can do it, but others from the same set are corrupted. This corruption is constant for the same images over and over so it's not corrupting them. It's as if Preview has created a cache on the NAS of these images and keeps opening the corrupted images instead of parsing the JPG each time. If that makes sense as it doesn't make sense to me that JPGs from the same set are good and some are not ONLY in Preview but not every other app I've used and not if they are on my desktop.

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Answer 6

Dec 2, 2023 2:50 PM in response to léonie

Maybe I didn't explain well enough. Something is wrong with Preview and only Preview. The exact same images appear perfectly when I open them from the NAS on my PC... The NAS is fine. The exact same images appear perfectly when copied off the NAS on my MAC and opened by Preview (and other apps) or from the NAS with other apps on my Mac. ONLY Preview has an issue opening (some) JPGs but it's persistent. Preview was working perfectly before 14.x. Preview never had any issues opening the exact same images with the previous version of MacOS 12-13.

The images themselves are not corrupted.

I was hoping there was some way to to reset Preview or whatever mechanism it's using the cache the images as it can't be randomly reading images incorrectly as the interface from the Mac to NAS is working find for all the other apps on the Mac when looking at the exact same images.

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Answer 7

stoobloo

Level 1

107 points

Dec 11, 2023 6:53 AM in response to Shahriar Farkhan

Same for me. I don't think there's that many NAS users with Macs. Apples support for reliable NAS features has been abysmal compared to Windows.

I just have to open files up in something else, shame as preview is so snappy and easy, when it works.

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Answer 8

c|-|r15

Level 1

13 points

Dec 16, 2023 11:37 AM in response to Shahriar Farkhan

Hi Shahriar

I have discovered I have this issue too. I save all my photos to a NAS drive which is backed up/synced to my OneDrive account. I noticed this evening that I too have loads of corruption with Preview accessing the images on the NAS. Like you said, if I copy and paste them locally, no issue at all, so I know (thankfully) that there isnt a problem with the images themselves. Do you know if there is a work around? I'd be keen to hear if you hear back from Apple.

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Answer 9

Dec 11, 2023 2:10 PM in response to Matti Haveri

No, it makes no difference but I appreciate the advice

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Preview shows corrupted images but they look okay when opened with another app... This is off a shared drive

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