Cats faces are messed up

[GhostCollective Resident]

At least for Firestorm the steps you listed work the same as well. Due to my abundant sculptie furnished apartments I learned real quick about the LOD trick and yes it was at 4 when it occurred, probably just SL being screwy that night.

[Tad Carlucci]

Textures are delivered by HTTP.

Many Internet Services Providers, such as most cable companies, use "transparent web proxies" in an attempt to make the user experience faster.

It's possible that issues with the ISP's transparent web proxy can cause problems such as seen by the OP.

When this is the case, there is nothing wrong at Linden Labs .. the textures are being transmitted as normal. And there is nothing wrong on your end .. your viewer is doing the best it can with the files it has received. And the problem would simply go away when the secretly-cached, but incorrect, copies of those textures are removed from the ISP's web proxy.

[dakillakm Resident]

This has happened to me as well. Same settings as always, same distance, same everything generally but all of the sudden these weird hunchback of notre dame kitties appeared for me too! It's been awhile and hasn't happened again.

I will say when it happened I believe I was using wifi away from home so perhaps it is indeed something to do with the ISP