Has anyone ever encountered this?

I'm trying to render scenes created in Poser, in Blender, largely because I can add caustics but also because the lighting is more sophisticated and the support for stuff like grass is better. But this: this is annoying. Almost never does the actual xxx.png or xxx.jpg work: it's always the xxx.jpg.004 that does. And getting rid of the bogus references... a royal pain.

Does anyone know of a script or work-around? I spend seriously HOURS cleaning this nonsense up.

Hi Robyn 

Are you using the Mcasual's script to do the import form Poser into Blender? I think and can be mistaken there is a new beta for the script that might address this but am not 100% sure  

Sorry to be so long getting back to you, Lobo.

In answer to your question: no, I do the following:

1] I set up a folder - I call mine 'Export'
2] bring up my scene in Poser, pose my figure(s) and stuff, get everything render-ready
3] under 'Scripts', go to 'Utility' and select 'Collect Scene Inventory'
4] select 'Copy all to folder'
5] navigate to my 'Export' folder - type in the name of my scene, which is what it is asking for. It'll save it as a new .PZ3. It will also save all textures files (images) to that folder as well as all OBJs, even stuff I don't use in Blender. Important to note is this: it will save all your OBJs as separate entities, which - for me at least - makes it easier to keep things apart so I can move them around a bit. Some folk prefer to also export the entire scene as one OBJ.
6] in that newly created Export folder, move all like with like: OBJs into an OBJs folder, JPGs and PNGs into a textures folder, and other Poser stuff into a Poser folder. I even put OBZs and shoulder and groin fix OBJs into that Poser folder, since they're not needed in Blender.
7] I have a special /Blender/Projects folder... so I move this export folder there and rename it to my scene name
8] open Blender, and save my blank scene as SceneName01.blend - for example, Ballet01.blend ... I keep versions even more than Blender does, so it is easy to go to a previous version if I stuff something up. Incrementing to the next version is dead-easy: you do a SaveAs, click the plus sign (+) next to the name, and click Save. So much of Blender is like this, one wishes other software was this clever.
9] Import OBJs into a Blender scene: Import -> Wavefront (.obj) ... in the ensuing dialogue:

A) untick 'Smooth Groups' and 'Lines' 
B) select Keep Vert Order (for re-importing back into Poser) 
C) tick 'Poly Groups' 
D) select OBJ and click Import

I know: looks tedious but I have full control over what happens. Now, some mesh has multiple material zones: each one that uses the same jpg is assigned a variant name of that jpg.

I DID finally find a way to get around the ensuing mess in the dropdowns: a simple Python script which goes something like this:

import bpy
import os.path

for image in bpy.data.images:
__if not image.pixels:
____image.user_clear()

Just replace the '_' underscores with spaces, save in a pure text editor as clearUnusedImg.py to somewhere. This seems to work, clearing out all references not only to unused texture files, but also to those dreaded img.jpg.001 / img.jpg.002 / img.jpg.003 / img.jpg.xxx / img.jpg.999.