Are you using the latest Firestorm? I was having similar troubles and sometimes getting photos that were completely black. Switching back one version seemed to help. All I found in the help forums was

people saying it was probably a graphics card problem when turning shadows on. :/

Was from latest up day of firestorm, it happened to me too but I went back to the previous one and everything works fine again

Hmm.. I don't think I'm on the most recent firestorm so I'm not sure what's happening. Any ideas on what the graphics card problem was CaptainBooger ?

I'm not sure. I know there was something about Macs (except I don't use one), and I remember the suggestion was to update your graphics driver. That didn't work for me, so I'm not sure if it would for you.

I can try and find it again. It was a few weeks ago.

I'm not finding it in my browser history :/ I'm sorry

I've had that problem before and I really think my computer just couldn't process them. Turning your draw distance down helps a lot, often that'll make them appear all on its own. Make it as low as you can and

see if it helps. Some viewers are better for it than others but I can't remember the names ha.

Came here via finchsl 's replurk!

Thank you everybody! Will try these ideas