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PNGs are being displayed at a too-low, blurry resolution
Closed, ResolvedPublicBUG REPORT

Description

Transparent PNGs are being displayed at a too-low resolution, resulting in blurry images.

Example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Psikyo-Koyori_artwork.png is a 239 × 421 pixel image, which should normally be displayed at full size both at the image page and when included as the lede image of an article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyori). In both cases, however, instead of using the full-size image (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ad/Psikyo-Koyori_artwork.png), a 120px version of the image is used instead (upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ad/Psikyo-Koyori_artwork.png/120px-Psikyo-Koyori_artwork.png), resulting in a blurry image due to upscaling.

Reported via Discord and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Transparent_PNGs_appear_broken_on_wikipedia. This issue appears to be affecting many images, reportedly transparent PNGs.

The full image, as it is not smaller than the display size, should be used, and was prior to around march 12

Event Timeline

There are a very large number of changes, so older changes are hidden. Show Older Changes

I guess what is happening is $wgThumbnailSteps is preventing the original asset from being used

Note that if you go to the File page and click on the image, it is sharp and looks normal. The problem happens when the image is rendered as part of a page.

This is caused by https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/core/+/1247723 (or https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/c/mediawiki/core/+/1247675?). As I understand it, that patch was intended to allow serving standardized thumbnail sizes when a full size is requested for a file that we can't display directly, e.g. PDF or TIFF files. Files that we can display directly, such as PNG or JPG, should probably serve the original in this case.

TheDJ renamed this task from Transparent PNGs are being displayed at a too-low, blurry resolution to PNGs are being displayed at a too-low, blurry resolution.Mar 13 2026, 9:04 PM
TheDJ triaged this task as Medium priority.
TheDJ added a project: Regression.

I think a very large number of files is affected, just going over my own enwiki uploads I find several. Some of the thumbnails look really bad. So reverting seems like a good idea to me.

I don't know if this is related, but I'm gonna mention it here anyway because the timing sort of lines up: the display of images over on Wikisource for PDFs in preview mode also got dramatically worse ~2 days or so ago. The scaling went crazy and it started taking portrait-style PDF page images and displaying them in boxes. e.g. a 724x1124 or so image (correct) became ~1000x1000 (bananas).

For an example, see:

It's not the PDF's fault, because non-previews display fine, or looking at the pages in the Wikimedia Commons location:

Feel free to spin this off if this is unrelated.

This is affecting the site logo. I would suggest prioritizing this higher.

We'll talk about it first thing on Monday.

@Nirmos It can't affect the site logo though, as they do not use thumbnails. Can you say which site is having logo problems and share a screenshot? It may be a different problem.

@matmarex A few days ago I noticed the site logo is blurry. It's blurry on my computer, regardless of site and browser (it's blurry in Firefox, Chrome and Edge). However, it's not blurry on my phone, using Firefox or Chrome.

enwiki in Firefox

blurry logo enwiki Firefox.png (940×1 px, 510 KB)

eswiki in Edge

blurry logo eswiki Edge.png (949×1 px, 350 KB)

svwiki in Chrome

blurry logo svwiki Chrome.png (940×1 px, 383 KB)

@matmarex A few days ago I noticed the site logo is blurry. It's blurry on my computer, regardless of site and browser (it's blurry in Firefox, Chrome and Edge). However, it's not blurry on my phone, using Firefox or Chrome.

Did you zoom in? (ctrl+=) Try zooming out? (ctrl+-)

Change #1253467 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ladsgroup; author: Ladsgroup):

[mediawiki/core@master] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253467

Change #1253485 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ladsgroup; author: Ladsgroup):

[mediawiki/core@master] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253485

Change #1253518 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ladsgroup; author: Ladsgroup):

[mediawiki/core@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.19] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253518

Change #1253518 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.19] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253518

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T14:54:44Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1253518|Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps" (T419927)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T14:56:31Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> ladsgroup: Backport for [[gerrit:1253518|Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps" (T419927)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T15:20:16Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1253518|Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps" (T419927)]]

Change #1253485 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253485

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T16:12:55Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1253518|Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps" (T419927)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T16:14:43Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> ladsgroup: Backport for [[gerrit:1253518|Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps" (T419927)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T16:20:23Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1253518|Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps" (T419927)]] (duration: 07m 28s)

Change #1253595 had a related patch set uploaded (by Reedy; author: Reedy):

[mediawiki/core@REL1_45] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253595

Change #1253596 had a related patch set uploaded (by Reedy; author: Reedy):

[mediawiki/core@REL1_44] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253596

Change #1253597 had a related patch set uploaded (by Reedy; author: Reedy):

[mediawiki/core@REL1_43] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253597

Change #1253622 had a related patch set uploaded (by Ladsgroup; author: Ladsgroup):

[mediawiki/core@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.19] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253622

Change #1253622 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@wmf/1.46.0-wmf.19] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253622

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T19:32:29Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1253622|Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original" (T419927)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T19:34:14Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> ladsgroup: Backport for [[gerrit:1253622|Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original" (T419927)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-03-16T19:39:39Z] <ladsgroup@deploy2002> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1253622|Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original" (T419927)]] (duration: 07m 10s)

Ladsgroup claimed this task.

Change #1253467 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@master] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253467

Change #1253597 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@REL1_43] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253597

Change #1253595 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@REL1_45] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253595

Change #1253596 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@REL1_44] Revert "mediawiki.util: Prefer prev step over non-standard in adjustThumbWidthForSteps"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253596

Change #1253646 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@REL1_43] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253646

Change #1253647 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@REL1_44] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253647

Change #1253648 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/core@REL1_45] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253648

Change #1253647 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@REL1_44] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253647

Change #1253648 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/core@REL1_45] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253648

Change #1253646 merged by Bartosz Dziewoński:

[mediawiki/core@REL1_43] Revert "Media: Use previous step for non-standard width between steps and original"

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1253646