Screen Saver System Preferences layout issue on Yosemite

Hi,
After a clean install (first formatted and installed from a clean bootable USB-stick (so a really clean install)), the Screen Saver System Preferences shows a glitch after activating the Photos App (I think). I checked every step in the process and the glitch showed up after activating the Photos App.
When navigating to System Preferences and then to Desktop & Screen Saver, first it shows two columns of screen saver types (as it should be), but when the photos from the Photos App are loaded (in the background in the Desktop screen), the preview window with the selected screen saver stretches half a centimeter to the left, pushing one of the two columns away.
I have already tried reinstalling Mac OS Yosemite 10.10.3, deleting caches, removing screen saver config files (tip from Linc Davis), etc. The console does not show useful information (for me).
In my case the issue shows up on my iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) and MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014). Only on the MacBook the two columns merge to one. One the iMac I only see a small stretch, but it does not cause the two columns to merge.
Please reply if the same issue occurs and if there is a known solution.
Regards.

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

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Hi Ron,
Try deleting this file. com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/YourName/Library/Preferences. Drag that file from the Preferences folder to the Trash, empty the Trash and restart your MacBook.
See if that helps...
If not, back up your important data and do an Archive and Install. This does not erase the hard disk, but instead restores your system software while leaving your files untouched.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545
If you are running 10.4.7 as your profile indicates, you might want to update your software also.
Click the Apple Menu/Software Updates.
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Desktop/Screen Saver System Preferences don't work

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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With upgrade to 10.10.3 and integration from iPhoto to Photos, my screen saver in preferences cannot access my photos. Any ideas?

Mine started working after a while. I'm not sure how long it took but probably a couple hours. I was getting organized to set up a folder with the pictures I wanted in the screen saver when I clicked on the menu in the system preferences and was very surprised to options to pick photos from Photos.
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Scripting System Preferences - Ampersand Issue

Hello,
I'm trying to make an AppleScript to quickly change a bunch of System Preferences. I've gotten most of them set up fine, but when I attempt to click the "Users & Groups" button, AppleScript can't find it.
tell application "System Preferences"
activate
          set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.desktopscreeneffect"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
          tell process "System Preferences"
     click button "Users & Groups" of scroll area 1 of window "System Preferences"
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<AXApplication: “System Preferences”>
<AXWindow: “System Preferences”>
<AXScrollArea>
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Groups”>
Thanks in advance!

There are two problems with your script, as presented.
First, since you select the Desktop & Screen Effect preference pane in line 3, the rest of the script is doomed to fail since there is no 'window "System Preferences" - it's now called "Desktop & Screen Saver" (or whatever your localized version is called), and there is no button to click.
Assuming you resolve that (e.g. by removing the 'set current pane...' line, the second problem is hinted at by your UIElementInspector output.
You see, there is no button called 'Users & Groups'. The actual button is called
"Users &
Groups"
- yes, there is a return after the ampersand, not a space - this isn't an issue of simple text wrapping.
Therefore you want to:
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Groups" of scroll area 1 of window "System Preferences"

I can't save system preferences

I am trying to save the Date & Time preferences to have the date and time displayed in the menu bar. I go into system preferences/date $ time, make sure it is unlocked, and click the checkbox to 'show the date and time'. However, the setting does not save and always reverts back to unchecked. I am the administrator of the computer however, all of the files in the system folder, including the preference pane files are read-only. Every user on the machine has the same issue, even if I create a new user. Any idea what is going on? Is it possible that the ability to save changes to the system preferences has been disabled? I have already run the repair disk permissions but that did not help.

I tried deleting that file from the system folder but when I do that and reboot it does not get recreated.
AHA, good sleuthing, we have a deeper problem, may I suggest...
Could be many things, we should start with this...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates.

How should I find my Screen Saver's preferences?

I'm writing a screen saver that basically draws stuff the user types into a box. I have not completed it yet, because I have not been able to locate where the screen saver preferences are located. Here's the code that takes care of the preferences:
//PrefControl.m
//I wrote this on my brother's school computer. Go !:
#import "PrefControl.h"
//define what you have - not defined in header file because there is no need to access the predefined text in any other file:
#define DISPLAYED_TEXT @"com.nodomain.Saver.DISPLAYED"
@implementation PrefControl
@synthesize displayed;
-(id) init{
self = [super init];
if(self){
//read user defaults
NSUserDefaults* defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
displayed = [defaults stringForKey: DISPLAYED_TEXT];
return self;
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//write preferences the way the UserDefaults guide says to:
NSUserDefaults* defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSMutableDictionary* defs = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithCapacity:1];
[defs setObject:displayed forKey:DISPLAYED_TEXT];
[defaults registerDefaults:defs];
-(void) dealloc{
[self writePrefs];
[super dealloc];
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NSUserDefaults* defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
NSMutableDictionary* defs = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithCapacity:1];
[defs setObject:@"Hello, World!" forKey:DISPLAYED_TEXT];
[defaults registerDefaults:defs];
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return [[[PrefControl alloc]init]autorelease];
@end
and its header:
//PrefControl.h
//I wrote this.
#import <cocoa/cocoa.h>
@interface PrefControl:NSObject{
NSString* displayed;//the text my Screen Saver displays.
@property(readonly, nonatomic) NSString* displayed;
-(id) init;//sets up all the properties. done over time.
-(void) writePrefs;//writes the defaults.
-(void) dealloc;
+(void) initialize;//sets up the defaults.
+(PrefControl*) prefs;//makes and autoreleases a new PrefControl.
@end
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I prefer to do the behind-the-scenes work before working on the major GUI if I can.

I just did a little test and changed something in my Screen Saver settings and looked to see what changed (just had a Finder window open in my ~/Library/Preferences and had the "Date Modified" column selected so that the most recent change would appear at the top) and noticed that the file called com.apple.screensaver.xxxx.plist file changed (the xxxx is a hex number that is part of your UUID, or perhaps the whole UUID, as have seen it both ways). This screensaver preferences file is located in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost which makes sense, as every user would need their own set of screen saver preferences on each host.
Looking at this file in TextWrangler it looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>askForPassword</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>idleTime</key>
<integer>300</integer>
<key>lastNonRandomModuleName</key>
<string>Flurry</string>
<key>moduleName</key>
<string>Flurry</string>
<key>modulePath</key>
<string>/System/Library/Screen Savers/Flurry.saver</string>
<key>tokenRemovalAction</key>
<integer>0</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
Hope that helps.
One thing I did have a question about is how to find the UUID. On a Mac Pro system the command:
system_profiler | grep -i uuid
returned the expected number that was part of the com.apple.screensaver.xxxx.plist file, but this did not work on a MacBook Pro. No luck trying to find out why so far. Anyone have any ideas? There is also a UUID associated with a disk volume, that appears to have nothing to do with the UUID associated with the system. So the UUID I'm talking about here is for the system, not a disk.
-Bob

4.2.1 Does Not Fix" Crash-on-screen saver" bug or metadata issues

ATV2 crashes as soon as it goes to screen saver. 4.2.1 does not fix this. WTC?
You have to set screen saver to "Never" to prevent crashing.
No one checks these things?
Message was edited by: Mike Kwiatkowski

Mike Kwiatkowski wrote:
ATV2 crashes as soon as it goes to screen saver. 4.2.1 does not fix this. WTC?
Metadata issues still hosed.
Not seen the screensaver issue.
Personally I think this update was a patch to fix the DVI flickering issues that rendered the device unusable for many people - other annoyances can be fixed later but we better keep reminding them:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

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Message was edited by: i2

Hello,
It might just be a corrupted preference file, try this: Locate this file: com.apple.iphoto.plist
It's here: /Home/Library/Preferences. Open the Preferences folder, locate that file, drag it to the Trash, empty the Trash and reboot. It's ok to trash a pref file, your Macs will create new ones for you.
Also, if that doesn't do the trick, try moving the photos you'd like to use into your Pictures folder, not using your iPhoto libraries. That way when you "Choose Folder" .. select your Pictures folder in the Sidebar in your Finder window and see if those photos are available.
Carolyn

System Preferences Compatability Issue

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If this problem is due to DNS, look in your configuration. What is the number one DNS server address? Is it local, or is it on the Internet at large? Or post the Address here and folks can help you look it up.
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172.xxx.yyy.zzz
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Interesting Issue with Screen Saver in System Preferences

Sorry for posting what might be a simple fix, as I thought it would be such, but apparently I just can't seem to figure this out. (as I trouble shoot for Pro Apps support requests every day at the office, but it's always the simplest items that seem to get us for some reason)
Just recently assisted installing Snow Leopard (Mac Box Set) on my sister's machine, clean install, and was in the process of updating her screen saver the way it was previously, Cycling through her Photos in iPhoto. When I first selected iPhoto within the screen saver system preference pane, it would give me a message saying that there were no photos selected/available. Yet, when I opened iPhoto '08, all her photos where all coming up as expected. No matter how many times I tried to select iPhoto in the screen saver pane, it wouldn't come up.
I figured I'd follow the request it was giving me, about using the icon at the bottom of the pane to manually add the "Pictures" folder where they all reside. Instead of just adding the "Pictures" folder to the side bar, it now shows ALL various sub-folders in the side bar list. (making the list about 100x longer than original)
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I appreciate any advice and/or guidance in how I might be able to remove the extra photo folders from the Screen Saver Sys Preferences side bar, and thank you very much in advance for taking the time thus far.
Best Regards,
-James-

How about the system preferences?
com.apple.systempreferences.plist
R

Screen Saver System Preferences layout issue on Yosemite

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