Desktop/Screen Saver panel missing in System Preferences

Hello,
I recently had to have my hard drive changed and I reloaded OSX 10.6.8 back on it along with the applications DVD. Now when I go to the system preferences, the DESKTOP/SCREEN SAVER panel is no longer listed. I am very new to my Imac and tried to reinstall the applications disk. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this problem so I can change the desktop pictures? Thanks

Open System Preferences and go to View menu (on the menu bar). You should see Desktop & Screen Saver listed.
If you see it, go to View menu > Customize, and mark "Desktop & Screen Saver".
If you do not see it, insert the Snow Leopard DVD, hold the C key while your computer is starting up and reinstall Mac OS X

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System Pref's freeze when trying to access "Desktop & Screen Saver"

Hi.
Every time I access the Desktop & Screen Saver category from the System Pref's window, the System Pref's freeze up (spinning beach ball of death appears) and I have to force quit.
Any thoughts?
Thanks all.
vanessa_b

Apparently, there's corruption somewhere. Move the com.apple.desktop.plist and com.apple.systempreferences.plist files out of ~/Library/Preferences/ to the desktop, move the three or four com.apple.screensaver plist files out of ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/ to the desktop, log out and back in. Now try to set the Desktop & Screensaver PrefPane. Note that you'll have to reset some items in System Preferences. If that fixes the problem, then one or more of those plist files is the culprit. You have two options. Reset your System Prefs and throw away the files you moved to the desktop or replace the new ones with the ones you took out, one at a time, until you find the one causing the problem.

Desktop & Screen Saver pane won't open in System Preferences

Whenever I go to open the Desktop & Screen Saver pane in System Preferences, it won't work and I get the message "Preferences Error: Could not load Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane." Please help. Thank you very much.

This thread sounds pretty much the same as yours.....
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1521783
The only thing I can think of might be a corrupted System Preferences .plist file
Home folder > Library > Preferences > com.apple.systempreferences.plist > drag that .plist to the desktop and try System Preferences again.....
A new plist file will be created when you open System Preferences again....

I was changing my desktop screen saver in system preferences screen protection. Now it says it is "Loading Images" and won't stop. The Colourful wheel goes around for ever and It does not stop. Can anyone help me?

I was changing my desktop screen saver in system preferences>screen protection. Now it says it is "Loading Images" and won't stop. The Colourful wheel goes around for ever and It does not stop. Can anyone help me?

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
I have seen a lot of cases like your issue, and it's easy to solve.
First, open Disk Utility, select Macintosh HD in the sidebar and repair permissions. Sometimes, a permission can be damaged and it makes that an application doesn't work properly.
If that doesn't work, open Finder, select Go menu > Go to Folder, type ~/Library/Prefereces, delete "com.apple.desktop.plist" and "com.apple.systempreferences.plist" and restart

System Preferences- Desktop/Screen saver- crash EVERY TIME

Hi-
I have a brand new iMAc 24" with Leopard and all software is up to date via update as of 12 hours ago (10.5.1 etc). I have office 2004 and photoshop/illustrator but NO other software loaded. The computer is now 7 days old. Yesterday I used system preferences to change my desktop picture to something from my iPhoto library, as per normal with 10.5.1 I got one picture up and then went to change it and now EVERY TIME I try to change anything in the desktop/screen saver system preferences the application dies. I can get the desktop/screen saver page to open but as soon as I click any conceivable option on that window the system preferences application dies. I have sent about 7 crash reports to apple and see that others are describing similar (not identical) problems. Is apple going to fix this? I DID not install leopard on this computer, its BRAND NEW. The only thing I have done is to update whatever apple told me was available. HELP...

My computer was a month old when I installed Leopard (which turned out to be an adventure....), and once I finally got a proper install one of the features I explored was Desktop and Screensaver, specifically I tried the new mosaic option in the Screensaver for pictures, it seemed to work. The 10.5.1 update came out, a bit later I tried that Screensaver option again and not only did it not work, but it crashed System Prefs. I ended up trashing every plist and cache file having to do with System Prefs, Screensaver, and iphotomosaic in my home ~/Library folder. Oh, and in searching for them they managed to crash the Finder too. So take a look thru ~/Library, especially Preferences, be sure to also look in the ByHost folder, and you might also check the Caches folder. Remove all files you can find that have to do with System Prefs, Screensaver, and Desktop. Once I did that all was fine again with my System Prefs. The mosaic option even started working again.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Desktop/Screen Saver System Preferences don't work

Recently, I have gone to System Preferences- Desktop/Screen Saver, in an attempt to change my desktop picture. The preference window opens, but clicking on either the Desktop or Screen Saver button produces no results. Nothing happens. I'm getting rather tired of the desktop picture, so any advice would be appreciated!
Thank you.
Cameron MacDonald

Hi Cameron I'm not going to be much help because I too have exactly the same problem with my machine - I have tried re-installing Leopard and that makes not one scrap of difference - I have cleared out all the rubbish on the machine - no difference - sent umpteen "reports" to Apple expecting some sort of response - after all the OS is the best thing since sliced bread so they can't have many reports to deal with - perhaps its us causing the problem.
Regards Bob

Can't Access Desktop & Screen Saver Preferences

Hi everyone,
Can't figure this one out!!!
In the main System Preferences>Show All, the title of Desktop & Screen Saver icon has changed to "DesktopScreenEffectsPrefDock". It is all smashed together like that and partially overlays the "Appearance" title to the left of it.
When I click on the icon, the new window appears, but the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences don't display inside it. The title appears in the top bar of the window, but it is empty below that. Any other preferences icons I click on display fine.
Any thoughts?
I did just have the processor upgrade done, and also removed some bad memory. Not sure if that's contributing? I'd be grateful for any help.
TJ
G4 800 MHz, upgraded to dual 1.8MHz processor Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G4 800 MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9)
G4 800 MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9) Recent upgrade to Sonnet Duet Dual 1.8 GHz processor
G4 800 MHz Mac OS X (10.3.9) Recent upgrade to Sonnet Duet Dual 1.8 GHz processor

TJ,
I am unfamiliar with all of the options provided by YASU, and other than flipping a coin or throwing caution to the wind I am unable to advise.
Perhaps an Archive and Install followed by the 10.3.9 Combo Update, and Security Update 2006-003 (10.3.9 Client) may be called for.
;~)

No Aperture photos show up in Desktop & Screen Saver System Prefernences

For some time I have experienced an issue wherein no photos from my Aperature library appear in my Desktop & Screen Saver System Preferences on the Desktop tab. "Aperture" appears in the left-hand column list of photo sources, but clicking it produces no results on the right-hand side where the thumbnails are normally shown. Curiously, if I choose the Screen Saver tab on the same preference pane, the photos all show up and are accessible.
As another bit of background, I do sync a number of photos from Aperature to my iOS devices using iTunes and never have an issue. The full listing of albums/folders appears in iTunes properly every time.
I have tried the all of the iLife Sharing options within Aperature and they do not seem to have any effect on this issue. I've been sticking with Share on Exit, since my iOS devices have no problems with this setting.
Also, if I choose a photo from within Aperature to set as my desktop photo it does work, but again, when I open the System Preferences neither the thumbnail for the background being used nor any other photos show up.
Any advice on things I can try?

Have you tried switching libraries, then quitting Aperture, and checking Desktop & Screen Saver again? I'd be interested to see if your particular issue manifests in a different library.

Could not load Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane.

Upgraded 10.10.3. Tried to use "desktop & ScreenSaver" system preferences and only get this message...
Could not load Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane.
Help!

If you see a "could not load" alert when opening a System Preferences pane

Preferences error, could not load Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane.

Preferences error, could not load Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane.

Close all windows and quit all applications.
Hold the option key down and click the "Go" menu in the Finder menubar.
Select "Library" from the dropdown, then "Preferences" folder.
Look for these three files.
com.apple.screensaver.plist
com.apple.desktop.plist
com.apple.systempreferences.plist
Right click each one of those and select " Move To Trash" from the contextual menu.
Restart the computer.

Why No Desktop / Screen Saver Photos After Upgrade to 3.3.1?

After upgrading to Aperture 3.3.1, no Aperture Desktop / Screen Saver images appear. Message "Unable to locate XXX" comes on. When I went into System Preferences, I find my iPhoto Library I have but NO Aperture Library & resulting Projects & Albums.
I can open Aperture, import new photos, scroll thru all my Projects, Albums, Folders etc just NOT see them in Desktop / Screensaver.
Thanks / Gene

I went into Aperture and clicked on Render Previews and all the Aperture Projects etc appeared and solved the problem : -)
Gene

No iPhoto library visible in Desktop & screen saver.

iPhoto library is not available from:
System Preferences - Desktop & Screen Saver
Tjeee they really pushed a Beta version out...

Terence Devlin wrote:
I suggest that you try clearing out your caches.
Thanks. This seemed to do the trick, although I'm not sure exactly how.
I used Cocktail to clear the system and user caches. This seemed to work once, but when I checked my preferences again, it simply showed iPhoto without folders as a choice for Desktop pictures-- back to my original problem.
I cleared caches again, and then <option>+<cmd>iPhoto to rebuild the database and caches. This may have been overkill, but in the end, it finally worked.
With 50,000+ photos, this took several hours with an early 2011 MBP @2.2GHz.

"Desktop & Screen Saver" settings not saving upon reboot.

"Desktop & Screen Saver" settings not saving upon reboot. Settings are always set back to factory default upon computer startup. Need help! Please!

Back up all data.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
If you have more than one user account, and the one in question is not an administrator account, then temporarily promote it to administrator status in the Users & Groups preference pane. You can demote it back to standard status when this step has been completed.
Triple-click the following line to select it. Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
sudo chflags -R nouchg,nouappnd ~ $TMPDIR.. ; sudo chown -R $UID:20 ~ $_ ; chmod -R -N ~ $_ 2> /dev/null
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The command will take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear, then quit Terminal.
Step 2
Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open.
In the Terminal window, type this:
resetpassword
That's one word, all lower case, with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’renot going to reset a password.
Select your boot volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.

Desktop & Screen saver prefs won't load

Desktop & Screen saver prefs won't load

First follow the instructions in this support article.
If an iPhoto or Aperture library is the source of your desktop pictures, it may need to be rebuilt, or you may need to update the application to the latest version.
Otherwise, continue as below.
Back up all data.
In the Finder, hold down the option key and select
          Go ▹ Library
from the menu bar. From the Library folder, delete the following item, if it exists:
          Caches/com.apple.systempreferences
and move the following items to the Desktop, if they exist:
          Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db
          Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Launch System Preferences and test. If you still have the issue, put the items you moved to the Desktop back where they came from and post again. Otherwise, delete the items.

Could not load Desktop & Screen Saver

I got this error message when opening Sys Pref / Desktop Screen Saver, "Could not load Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane." Just loaded Yosemite on
iMac 10.1. Any suggestions?
Thanks

If you see a "could not load" alert when opening a System Preferences pane

Desktop/Screen Saver panel missing in System Preferences

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