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.

Similar Messages

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

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

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.

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

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.

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" 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.

My Desktop & Screen saver

Hi there i was wondering if anyone knew how to fix this problem, when i go into the desktop & screen saver application it becomes not responding!! The screen says loading images and just stays like that??

A slight correction.
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 two files.
com.apple.desktop.plist
com.apple,systempreferences.plist
Right click each one of them and select " Move To Trash" from the contextual menu.
Restart the computer.

Desktop screen saver freeze

I am on an iMac using Lion. My desktop screen saver window will not shut down...the wheel just spins. Even after a complete restart it reapprears and won't go away. HELP!

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Delete Desktop settings file. Open Finder, select Go menu (on the menu bar) > Go to Folder, and type ~/Library/Preferences. Then, delete "com.apple.desktop.plist" and "com.apple.systempreferences.plist", and restart

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

Can picture folders added in the Desktop & Screen Saver Pane be deleted?

Can I delete folders I've added with the Choose Folder option in Desktop & Screen Saver?

Whew, what an ordeal they make it!?
Trash any/all of these...
/Users/nnnn/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
/Users/nnnn/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.(12 digit hex number).plist
/Users/nnnn/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.slideshow.(12 digit hex number).plist

No drop down menu in Desktop & Screen Saver

I just transferred everything to a new Macbook Pro (2011 model) from my old one (early 2010) model, and when I access Desktop and Screen Saver to look at my background images, there is no longer a drop down menu for fitting the images to screen, even though I could do so on my last Macbook Pro with the same custom images I'm using now.
Any ideas?

Okay, it's resolved. For some reason, having the Custom Wallpaper folders in my actual Desktop & Screen Saver library directory did not work, so I moved them to my User/Library/Pictures directory and now it works fine.
But it would be nice to be able to keep desktop backgrounds in the same default directory as all of the other backgrounds...

Aperture Library in "Desktop & Screen Saver" now, but resolution off

My Aperture library now show up in Media Browser and Desktop & Screen Saver, but the resolution of images, particularly when selecting them for desktop backgrounds are too low. I'm not getting the full resolution images. Any idea what the deal is? Do I need to reprocess something?

Bobio,
The pictures you see for selection in Desktop and Screen Saver from from the *Media Browser*. It is the same mechanism you use for sharing pictures with any application on your machine.
If Aperture photos are not available there, you probably have previews turned off. Look in the Aperture Preferences for that. However, previews are not automatically generated until you quit Aperture. I.e., Aperture does not spend time making your photos available for other applications when it knows you are using Aperture.
If neither of those ideas pans out, I would suggest following the [Troubleshooting Basics|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3805].
nathan

Desktop & Screen saver prefs won't load

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