Desktop background locked - help?

For some reason I cannot change my desktop background, and I also cannot use hot corners with my mouse pad anymore. However, the keyboard option F9 for hot corners still works.
When I go through the usual process of changing my desktop background, select a new picture, or select a standard Mac background and put it into the change desktop to this, it doesn't change automatically like it should. My desktop background remains the same.
Does anyone know if there is something on my computer somewhere that I accidentally disabled to make these functions not work?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

Hi all,
Welcome to the Discussions!!
I had a similar issue a while back, which from memory was caused by me trying out the automatic backgrounds that change every few minutes or so. I managed to cure it by simply repairing permissions and then restarting.
You can repair permissions from Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, then choose your Hard Drive and click "Repair Permissions."
If you've already tried this without success, I unfortunately can't offer any more suggestions.
james

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