Desktop Image Problem
Okay, I'm still pretty new to Leopard, but I can't remove my desktop picture or replace it.
I go to open the SYSTEM PREF-DESKTOP AND SCREENSAVER, and it freezes up in that window. I can't click anything, get the spinning beach-ball of death, and it quits out.
With the report that *the application system preferences quit unexpectedly.*
How do I remedy this problem? It kinda drives me crazy!
Thanks!
They're stored at;
Macintosh HD > Library > Desktop Pictures
Navigate to that folder. If it's empty (or missing), leave it open on the desktop, and go to the TM symbol on the right of the menu bar. Click to open the drop-down, choose "enter Time Machine".
If the folder there is empty (or missing), step back through the timeline to see if they were present earlier (must be if you had a background!).
When (if) you find them, either select all (⌘A) the contents or just select the folder and click the restore tab at the right of the 'Dock' at the bottom.
Read Pondidi's article before proceeding to be sure you have it right.
http://pondini.org/TM/15.html
Similar Messages
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Desktop Image and Screensaver: doesn't work
I can not change my desktop image, and my screensaver won't start.
I was playing around in Desktop Preferences tonight, setting different speeds for the iTunes Artwork screensaver to see how it'd look, and suddenly, System Preferences just crashed on me. I wasn't doing ANYTHING strange, just playing with the options of the original screensavers that came with my computer, which is brand new. I don't have any third party screensavers loaded on my machine. The desktop image was one I made myself, with Photoshop. I have absolutely no idea why it's acting this way.
Even stranger, out of curiosity, I created a second user account and tried the screen saver while logged in the second account. The screensaver worked just fine. But still nothing in my main account. Any ideas?
When I try Desktop Images and Screensaver now (within System Preferences), it CRASHES on me. I get this error message:
"The application System Preferences quit unexpectantly.
Mac OS X and other applications are not affected.
Click Reopen to open the application again. Click Report to see more details or send a report to Apple."
If I reopen it again, I get the same thing. The second error dialog will always have the option to "try again." If I try again, I can actually open the Desktop Images and Screensavers window. I can't change anything, however. If I try changing something, I get the following message:
"System Preferences -- New Settings
New settings have been created for this application. Do you wish to use these settings from now on?"
With two buttons for yes or no. However, no matter which button I select, I get the same results.
I've run OSX through Jaguar and Panther, so it's not like I'm a new user who just clicked the wrong thing. I'm seriously stumped here. Can anyone help? I'm a little worried about this.... Thanks.
Dual Core Intel Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.6)THANK YOU!!!! Yes, it was the preferences in my library causing the problems. I just deleted the screensaver preferences, and that fixed all the problems, including the desktop image problem.
I also think that maybe an alarm clock program I downloaded called Aurora may have been partly to blame. I had Aurora authorized to wake my computer from sleep, even though I had password protection enabled. This might have conflicted with the screensaver somehow, dunno.... Let me know if any of you are successfully using Aurora without any problems, and I will reinstall it. But for now, that program is off my system.
Anyways, thanks a load. You guys are all very helpful. -- Dean -
I have a 13" macbook from 2009 and for some reason can no longer change my desktop image by just clicking on an image in system prererences>I-Photo. Does anyone know what the problem could be?
Your Desktop Picture settings and Dock items are stored in the files
/Users/your short user name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist and
/Users/your short user name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
in the "Preferences" folder in your user library. This looks like the system has trouble to write to these files. Check the permissions on your user library and remove the above files from your user library, then log off and on again.
Your user library is hidden in Lion and Mt. Lion. To reveal it, use the Finder's "Go" menu. Select "Go" in the Finder's main menu bar and hold down the alt/option key, until you see the "Library" in the drop-down menu. Double click it to open a Finder window, so you can browse the files inside.
Regards
Léonie -
Does anyone else have an iMac that displays a non-selected desktop image at start-up?
I bought my system new in 2009. It's a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel processor with 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 installed memory. I'm running OSx 10.6.8 Mavericks. The behavior of not displaying my chosen desktop image is new and disturbing. Although the problem seems to be malevolent and non destructive, the cause of the condition is difficult to understand & correct. If Macintosh has designed this to indicate a more serious problem, I salute the protocol but now ask for conditions that may trigger my machine to ignore it's user directed programming and decide to display a 'default' desktop image. Interestingly, at the same time the correct image remains on the Display tab of 'System Information' page . What's wrong with my untouchable, reliable, uncrackable Mac? A more obvious sign of corruption is the sporadic temporary freezing, from a few seconds up to what seems to last over a minute, of most media. It happens while using many different players including iTunes, iDVD player, VLC, Quicktime, Flip4Mac, etc. Any intended help with either or both of these glitches will be reviewed and appreciated. MikeL
I'm trying to work out if it's just this mac I'm working on, or actual bugs/annoyances of InDesign CS5 (version I'm using is 5.5)..
What version of OS X?
WHat exact vesion of InDesign? Hold down Cmd and select About InDesign. Is it 7.5.2.318 or something else?
3) ID doesn't quit when I tell it to (but it loves to 'unexpectedly quit' which I'm guessing is this mac more than ID)
No, this is InDesign's fault. Post a crash report to http://pastebin.com/ and post a link here and we'll tell you why it happens.
Most of your items sound like some third party software interfering with InDesign. They don't sound like normal problems. -
Please help my desktop images, wallpapers gone.
Please community i need your help. I restored my computer from Lion to lion, before i had Leopard and i had all my favority desktop wallpapers, for example aurora , earth horizon , earth etc.. When i installed for the first time Lion , i got even more desktop images for ex. Aurora at grey or blue colors those i loved so much . I am so new to mac's ok i did not even know where my folders were, i even wanted to get the same background images for me phone too ^^. But when i did a restore from Lion to Lion means that i erased(and i forgot to backup or search for the desktop images on my mac it was to late ) my disk and got the install all over again , all my desktop wallpapers were gone. Now please if possible for some1 to sent me if he got upgraded from Leopard to Lion and did not erased or kept a backup of desktop images, to simple sent me the folder with all the descibed images i mention, i would be very happy again thank you.
have had the same problem. also not a computer buff - mine had not been in for work when it would go to sleep after i had shut if down. happened a few times then i lost photos, lots of them. took it to local APPLE repairs and they found nothing, 21 days later.
last night it did it again - powered off at home and sleeping when i got to the office.
any advice? -
Okay, I just had the screen on this iMac replaced because of this problem with a dark line at the top of the screen. The screen has been replaced, and the dark line isn't there anymore. However, I am now having persistent image problems. This is noticeable when I use the Aurora desktop. If I have a window open (e.g. Safari) for a long enough time, and then I X out of it, I will see a shadow/ghost of it. It's most noticeable with a dark background. However, I DID change some of the settings in "Appearance," so I wonder if that might have done it. But I can't see a way to change everything back to default. Do you know if there's a way?
Hi again - a couple of ideas:
If you haven't printed the images or a while, it could be that you prepared them under a previous version of the Aperture raw and they've since been reprocessed, resulting in a slightly different look
I had an occasion about 12 months ago when an update to the Epson printer drivers caused me to have to go back and change my print setups in Aperture, due to new colour interpretations. Don't know why, but it happened... maybe your settings have changed since last printing?
Could be that you did or didn't have the appropriate soft-proofing turned on - are you using this feature? -
Yeah. I changed it before by going under the apple (top, left), clicking system prefs, and then going clicking 'desktop images and screen saver.' But now I can't change my desktop image because when I attempt that process of clicking the apple and clicking system prefs and then clicking-what should be there but isn't-the desktop and screen savor icon, which is plaining missing. Its on my girlfriend's mac. I don't know what went wrong.
Anyone know what happened to that sweet, sweet icon? I'll really appreciate anyone, who could help fix the problem for me. Thanks!Use Pacifist to extract a new copy of the DesktopScreenEffectsPref.prefPane from your Mac OS X 10.3 installation disks, and then run the combo updater for your version of Mac OS X.
(24041) -
Hello! I downloaded OS X Mavericks on my Mac and my pc didn't restart properly.my desktop image doesn't appear and i can't shut down my pc. what can i do ?
These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Step 1
For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter "BOOT_TIME" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamps of the BOOT_TIME log messages, which refer to the times when the system was started. Now clear the search box and scroll back in the log to the last boot time when you had the problem. Select the messages logged before the boot, during the time something abnormal was happening. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
For example, if the system was unresponsive or was failing to shut down for three minutes before you forced a restart, post the messages timestamped within three minutes before the boot time, not after. Please include the BOOT_TIME message at the end of the log extract—not at the beginning.
If there are long runs of repeated messages, please post only one example of each. Don’t post many repetitions of the same message.
☞ When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ System Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of reports. A crash report has a name that begins with the name of the crashed process and ends in ".crash". A panic report has a name that begins with "Kernel" and ends in ".panic". Select the most recent of each. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
☞ If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash or panic, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
☞ Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful. -
How do I change the desktop image on the ThunderBolt display?
It doesn't even match MacBook's desktop image...
I have this problem on again - off again. I have five Desktops and sometimes a couple will default to the 'galaxy' background. I simply choose another image, then choose the image that I actually want and - presto - I have the background that I want! Note that I have to do this for each Desktop. But it should work - simply choosing the one you actually want first doesn't do it for me - I have to sort of choose one that I don't want and then one that I do.
Some sort of bug, I'm sure, but not a big one.
Clinton -
Sudden fading of desktop image
Well, this may seem like a trivial "problem" and it well may be but since I just bought this G5 and a costly 30" Apple display, I look at any "little" thing as possibly a sign of Major Trouble in my computer and/or display.
So, yesterday I was on the phone for hours with Apple about another issue (posted here if you have time to kill) and they had me do a million things to try to resolve it, nothing working. In the middle of one such operation I noticed that my desktop image suddenly went pale. I even mentioned it to the Apple woman but then I said maybe I've just been looking at it for too long.
After we hung up this pallid desktop pattern kept bothering me and I wanted to know for sure if it was my imagination or if something had "happened." I went into display settings and sure enough the calibration setting was on something weird - maybe it got there somehow during all the diagnostics Apple had me do. So I put it back to the correct setting but nothing changed as far as the desktop pattern quality.
The image is a gif that I downloaded from a cool website that has free desktop patterns and pictures. It maybe 2" x 2" and is tiled on the desktop. I went to the site, found the image, and sure enough, it's richer in tint, everything I had remembered. So I am thinking this cannot exactly be a display problem per se because I am looking at the same image on the website (perfect) and on my desktop (pale and washed out). So I think maybe it has something to do with the actual .gif - that something happened to it within the desktop image settings.
I remove it as a desktop image and from my files and trash it. I download it again from the site. When I look at it in Preview the colors are perfect. I even rename it. I put it in the desktop picture box and it fills the screen again as a tiled pattern, but as the same PALE washed out version. I try this several times all with the same result.
Then I remembered that I had sent this image to a friend so I found the email and took the attachment off and placed the image back in the desktop window. This time it worked. The image was as it should be, with all its rich tones. As a safeguard I emailed the .gif to myself at a yahoo account.
I could go back to the desktop pattern site and get the image again just to see if it would work properly from the start but I am afraid something will go wrong again and I have "resolved" the problem via the email attached .gif. Or maybe there is a real problem and I literally have covered it up by using the saved .gif.
Can anyone explain this to me? What misery could this indicate? Or can an image somehow suddenly get corrupted? What was really weird was that I kept downloading it from the site and it looked perfect UNTIL I put it in as a desktop image.
It's little things like this that drives some people to madness!
Thank you for reading.
G5 Quad Core Tower Mac OS X (10.4.8)thanks kwamster, now where was i? well, i think onyX actually did fix the off-times. now they reflect reality. we will see how that holds up.
in the meanwhile i essentially was forced at gunpoint to do an archive/install, and while i feared it my system seems to be unscathed. however, the desktop image thing remains unresolved. i am getting around it for the moment with a version of the image i found that seems only a few shades off. i can live with it for now. it's not so much IT as what IT may be an indication of, hence the archive/install which didn't cure it.
now apple is talking of my doing an erase/install which you can believe i am not in the mood to do but then a tier 2 person suggested that maybe the problem was in that it was a .gif format, not a .jpg. he suggests i fool around with the image in photoshop, get it colorwize where i want it and then save it as a .jpg and put it in the desktop preference window. i think it's a brilliant idea but if there is an underlying Major Problem it is only a kind of Band-Aid solution. he said the next thing i could do before an erase/install would be a hardware diagnostic, run off the apple install disk.
the three icons that are now question marks in the dock oddly have disappeared from the g3 folder on my g5. it's unlike me to have deleted them and anything else i've tried to move as an experiment from there out of the folder and onto the dock still keeps a copy on the desktop. the one dragged to the dock goes pouf if you remove it. no biggie. i can rewrite the info and make new OSX clippings. i asked the apple woman today if perhaps the mistake was putting something in the dock that was something other than an application and she said that you can put anything there, so...
oh, part of what i did today was indeed create a new user and make a test of the image and had the same problem. that is what led to the archive/install because they said it was a system issue not a user issue, but again, it seems not to have changed anything.
also verified and or repaired the permissions several times.
oh well. i'm riding quite the learning curve here.
thank you for your kind words of encouragement, however. they ease the pain. -
Pictures I have deleted are showing up when I try to change my desktop image
Hello all,
I changed my desktop image with no problem. However, as I was scrolling through the images in the iPhoto option, I realized that some pictures that I deleted months ago are still showing up. How do I get rid of these pictures completely? Thanks!Do you have by error two "iPhoto Libraries"? One with a different name, for example "iPhoto Library2" the other one with the Original Name. I am just guessing.
In iPhoto you have a Trash, which you need to empty regularly!
marek -
Missing desktop images on imac
If someone can please shed any light on this problem?
After first switch on of the new year.... my desktop image had changed and when I went into the desktop image folder it was empty.... all of my iPhoto images
are still ok... just the desktop images that appear to be missing???
Not the end of the world but curious to know why this has pahhened and if anything else will have changed that I don't know about???
Any help greatly appreciated.
DTo see your user folder in the Finder sidebar open a Finder window. From the menu choose Finder > Preferences to open the Finder Preferences window. Under Favorites check your name (the user name you choose for yourself). Your username will show up in the Finder sidebar. You can also check Pictures to see to hopefully show the link to your iPhoto Library.
By default your iPhoto Library will be in your Pictures Folder unless you moved it.
This short video on YouTube explains it well: Display Missing Finder Sidebar / Icons - Mac OS X Mavericks - YouTube
If you still need help I would do to the Apple Support Communities at Welcome | Apple Support Communities since the Finder and iPhoto are both both Apple products. -
Mucking with the desktop images folder
I have the desktop background image randomly rotating through a folder on my system. The problem I've run into, is that I'd like to be able to add and remove images from the folder (I have a script that pulls in photos from friends flickr streams, etc, and removes old ones so as not to fill my hd). However, the "desktop image rotator" doesn't seem to like this. If I remove the image currently shown, it will simply stop rotating. I've also noticed that it can get into a state where, when it does the cross-fade between images, it'll show some random image, but only during the cross fade. That is, it starts with image A displayed. When the cross fade starts it immediately jumps to some random image X then cross fades to image B. The cross fade ends with image B displayed for the rotation interval, then the cross fade starts again by immediately switching to a random image Y, then smoothly cross fading to C, which is again shown for the normal interval.
So, instead of A->B->C, I get A->X->B->Y->C (note, all of these images are randomly pulled from the directory. Just because I used letters in order doesn't imply that I'm actually expecting images to be pulled in any order from the folder).
The really odd part is that the X and Y images are usually images that no longer exist. Does the desktop image rotator copy the images it's using for the background somewhere else? That seems odd.
So, in the end what I'm asking is "Is there a safe way to remove images from whatever image folder the desktop image rotator is using?"
It may or may not be worth noting that while describing this, I've managed to lock up my dock. The top menus still work, but alt-tabbing around doesn't.do you see ANY of your files when you look at the desktop? if yes control-click anywhere on the desktop and select 'arrange by kind'. this will reshuffle your desktop icons. see if the files you are missing become visible. they may have been placed offscreen somewhere.
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I'm just trying to update from 3.5.8 to the latest version. Started on the website and it downloaded a desktop image only, no application. Then tried on Firefox to update under "Help". It's been spinning for an hour! Help. I just want the latest version
If there are problems with updating or with the permissions then easiest is to download the full version and trash the currently installed version to do a clean install of the new version.
Download a new copy of the Firefox program and save the disk image (dmg) file to the desktop
*Firefox 9.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html
*Trash the current Firefox application to do a clean (re-)install
*Install the new version that you have downloaded
Your profile data is stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder, so you won't lose your bookmarks and other personal data if you uninstall and (re)install Firefox.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox -
Strange desktop image behavior
Hello,
I have 2 admin accounts on my mac right now, each with it's own desktop image. Everything works fine except during the user-switching animation. From one account to the other, everything is smooth: both desktop images rotate with the cube.
But from the other way around it's different: during rotation, the desktop image from the account I'm switching into is the basic Apple Blue image. But as soon as the rotation is complete, the desktop image I chose suddenly appears.
So from account 1 to account 2 it's always ok, but from 2 to 1 I always get a temporary apple blue image.
Any idea why?
Thanks,
LoaWell thanks for the suggestion, but that's not actually the
problem I'm having.
The newsletter link along with all that other stuff on the
left hand side is just stuff I havn't gotten to yet.
The problem I'm having is with the navigation tabs at the TOP
of the page(policies, forms, info and M.R.)! I know the links for
those tabs are correct, because I can see from hovering over the
tabs that they're pointing in the right direction, and if it's the
policies page(leftmost tab at the top) I'm on, all the tabs to the
right work perfectly. The problem is that when I'm on any other
page (such as the M.R. page which is the rightmost tab), all the
tabs to the left of it mysteriously stop working!
As I said, just quickly click back and forth through the four
tabs at the top of the page and you'll see what the problem is. In
fact, completely ignore everything that isn't those four tabs at
the top of the page, because everything else is unfinished.
Please help! Thanks!
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