Qucklook previews of images and PDFs gone after clean install/ migration

[ghobish]

After some system instability, decided it was time to back up the boot drive (happens every night automatically anyway), do a clean install of Mojave 10.14.6 (from a fresh download) and migrate my installations from the backup. Mostly went fine, jumped through all the security access/ driver install hoops, etc.

However, the preview icons for PNG, JPG etc image files are gone, replaced by generic icons, and QuickLook (i.e., press the space bar for a preview) no longer provides me with a preview of the file. Neither does Quicklook let me preview PDF files. When I try, I just get a window with the generic icon.

Quicklook seems to be working fine with audio files and text files.

Did some online research- subsequently emptied caches, re-indexed Spotlight, one or two other things that haven't worked.

Running a 2010 McPro 5,1 flashed to 2012, 12-core 3.33GHz Xeon, 80GB Ram.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[bayswater]

Could it be a matter of waiting for the system to trundle through all the files and generate the icons? Like the way it spends a day indexing for searches.

[ghobish]

I doubt it. It's been 3 days.

[mikehalloran]

Do a Safe Boot by shutting down and holding the Shift key on start up. Release the Shift key and Log in when prompted. Wait till all of the alias icons rebuild. Reboot.

Besides restoring caches and System paths to default, this rebuilds the desktop and was called that in OS 9 and earlier. I had to do that a lot after Mojave installs. The normal symptom that this needs to be done is generic alias icons.

If this doesn’t do it, you may have to re-link the aliases. Right-click and fix the path when prompted or create a new one and drag to the location you want.

[ghobish]

Thanks Mike, that makes sense and will give it a try. Note these aren't (necessarily) aliases, they are actual files on the desktop (and it's not only desktop files that suffer from this.

(Also note- I sometimes have a problem doing a safe boot on this machine, possibly because it has a flashed NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (metal capable so I can run Mojave on this machine). Thanks again for the tip.

[ghobish]

Yes, like I was afraid, safe boot gets me all the way to the end of the progress bar but never actually finishes loading… Maybe one of the available system utilities would let me get under the hood and rebuild the desktop? Or maybe there is a system file I can delete (while booted from a backup) that might accomplish the same thing?

bootprogress.jpg (44.45 KiB) Viewed 817 times

[stubbsonic]

I wonder if Onyx has a rebuild desktop function. There are quite a few maintenance & cleaning commands in there. If you can do a nice big backup before you run it, that's probably smart. Note, there are different versions of the Onyx utility for most Mac OS versions.

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

[ghobish]

Yes, I'm familiar with Onyx (and its pitfalls!). It's been so long since I've used it I couldn't remember its name! Will give it a try.

Again, Quicklook works with text and audio files, just not with images, movies or PDFs.

[mikehalloran]

Onyx is nothing but a set of APIs for the MacOS. It can be more convenient than key commands and Terminal but it brings nothing to the table which is why I never use it. If Safe Boot with the Shift key down doesn’t work, Safe Boot in Onyx can’t either.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t dislike it. I’ve made a lot of money rebuilding or restoring systems totally screwed up by Onyx in the hands of those who don’t know what they are doing.

[ghobish]

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t dislike it. I’ve made a lot of money rebuilding or restoring systems totally screwed up by Onyx in the hands of those who don’t know what they are doing.

[stubbsonic]

Thanks, Mike H. Thankfully, I've heeded your previous warnings/comments about Onyx. I didn't sufficiently pass on those warnings. I'm glad you chimed in about it.

Onyx is often reached for in desperation...

[ghobish]

Thanks Mike, that makes sense and will give it a try. Note these aren't (necessarily) aliases, they are actual files on the desktop (and it's not only desktop files that suffer from this.

(Also note- I sometimes have a problem doing a safe boot on this machine, possibly because it has a flashed NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (metal capable so I can run Mojave on this machine). Thanks again for the tip.

So I was (after running down many unsuccessful rabbit holes in Terminal) finally able to reboot in safe mode- it just took an extraordinarily long time (I weighted down the shift key, went to a long dinner and upon my return, a login screen! Yay, of sorts. Unfortunately it changed/ fixed nothing. Logged in, waited a bit for icons to rebuild, nothing. Unless there's another suggestion (now that I know I can boot in safe mode), great but at this point I'm ready to just install a clean system on a clean disk and test it before doing a migration...