Google link
A number of people have reported corruption appearing on photos that have been sitting in the Google Cloud for a long period. (Least-ways that is how I interpret the ‘old’ photos comments). The corruption appears as random continuous patches of texture distortion that look something like water damage.
I do not use Google Cloud so I cannot add to the reports except to say it reminds me of the corruption I have previously seen when jpegs are stored in compressed containers (i.e. a lossy format subject to a lossy compression). Maybe Google Cloud hits hardware constraints now and again and moves stuff onto compressed drives. If you ever need to compress jpegs to save space always use a non-lossy compression. (they normally compress pretty poorly in terms of space savings, and so it is generally recommended to avoid ever compressing jpegs.)
I guess the moral of the story is to check your ‘old’ Google Cloud photos and take corrective action using non-cloud backups.
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