Inventory items go missing...

I have had many instances lately where items I placed in inventory folders suddenly go missing.

For example, my main appearance is a 'Furry' avatar, a beautuful red fox anthro by Jakkal, which is all Copy+ Mod+ items. I have manually created three 'outfit' folders for my appearance. Each creates the full nude red fox Avatar, ready to dress.

* One has the 'full kit', with the additional muzzle, footpaws, digitigrade lower legs, tail, head and throat, plus the skin texture, eyes, body definition, etc.

* One has all the same parts, except for the digitigrade lower legs, so she can wear pants, but still has footpaws.

* One is without the digitigrade lower legs or the footpaws, so she can wear pants and Human shoes.

I verify all of these work, and that I can drag the folder to my Avatar to change her appearance completely, and she's ready to dress as I desire. Works fine - all parts show up.

I log in later, and try to switch Avatar shapes. This time I find my muzzle, or one footpaw, or my tail is 'missing'. I check the folder, and the item that didn't rez is not there. It isn't in my 'lost and found' either. I have to copy it from another inventory folder again, and then 'wear' it.

So far, I haven't completely lost a unique item. I have always been able to locate a copy elsewhere in my inventory, so I can replace it, but this is getting annoying. If it happens to one of my expensive no-copy items, I am going to be really ticked off.

I've seen a few cases lately where a locally-cached copy of the Inventory is missing a few key items. This is especially true if you have folders that are entirely empty.

To make sure this isn't happening, try these steps:
1) Completely uninstall Second Life in Add/Remove Programs in the Windows Control Panel.
2) Download and install Second Life from http://secondlife.com/download
3) When logging in for the first time, search for something in your inventory.
4) The top of your Inventory window will say something to the effect of Fetched 1234 items... Just let it sit until the "Fetched" message disappears.
5) Hopefully, your missing inventory is now there.

I'm on a Mac. Is there a particular preferred method for doing a 'clean uninstall' on Mac? I'll probably try a re-install soon. My system is also experiencing a glitch in that I can't copy or paste between SL text sources (scripts, notecards) and applications on my system (MS Word and the like). copy/paste works fine in-world, but doesn't recogtnize there is anything on the clipboard when trying to copy between SL and other apps, either direction. The feedback I've gotten here implies that no one else is having that issue, even among other Mac users.

So far, it would only be one to three items missing from any given folder, but I might have missing items in several folders at once. Haven't had any lose the entire contents of a folder yet.

From what you said, I pesume that all my inventory data and other information relating to my account resides on the SL Servers somewhere, and not in some locally cached file. That is good to know for sure. I had been a bit worried that I might lose something if I did an uninstall and reinstall.

I've sort of been holding off on the reload, because it seems the next release of the SL client software isn't tha far off. But certainly, if something valuable vanishes, I'll try the re-install route first, before I panic.