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Desktop picture not remembered

J

j33pd0g

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Not every time, but once in a while, on startup or restart, my desktop pic will revert back to the first pic I ever chose. What is the problem? I also have to unplug my monitor (17" studio) and plug it back in for there to be any display. Ideas?
 
I have the exact same problem every time I disconnect my external monitor.

Haven't been able to find a solution except opening System Preferences and setting the background again.

Hope there's a fix soon!!🙄
 
well i have an ibook...and it happend to me once..its only been a week since i got it..
i had a lot of windows open...playing a game...and then when i came back to desktop...it was the default apple desktop...
no idea y it did that
 
Yep. The DT pic is still reverting. What I wonder now, is if these settings are "randomly" lost, what other (non obvious) settings are "randomly" lost. I would not be able to easily detect those. Repairing permissions on a daily basis doesn't fix this problem. If it is something that should be done, I hope the repair permissions of Disk Utility are Apple scriptable, and can be tossed into the shut down items... but I didn't see a shutdown items folder in OS X... would I have to run the script in the login startup items? By this time my settings could be screwed up, and I would still need to switch my DT pics. And change any other settings that are lost.
 
I've had this problem before, but I think it has to do with moving the image file into a new folder. So once you set your background image, leave that image in the same location.
 
I always keep my DT pics in the same folder. In fact, if it's a picture that's in another location (example: B-Day pix), and I want to use it as a desktop pic, I make a copy of it into my DT pix folder. I wish the problem was that simple. It only happens (randomly) when I shutdown and startup. I would put my mac to sleep... but that is a whole other issue.
 
I had a similar problem during the first week of using my iBook G4. When I selected a new background image in the display preferences, it refused to obey--the background simply wouldn't change. It went away after rebooting.

Adding other peoples' reports, there seems to be a bit of a reliability problem in this critical feature 😀
 
i've had the same blank or random DT picture changes... repaired permission but didn't seem to help.

you can "lock" the desktop preference file under the Library/Preferences directory... that seems to have kept things from changing randomly on startup...
 
I'll fifty second that...

Since OS X came about this has happened to me on various Macs at different times.

I have noticed however that the problem occurs; (i) when the screen resolution is changed by an app or game, etc. On quitting or app witching it seems to cause some kind of display panic, And (ii) Once in a while when I pull my headphones out with music or a movie playing the desktop pic has also been known to die after a few flickers of the screen.

Anyone else have this happen at these times?

cel, befuddled
 
This always happens to me on my powerbook when connecting and disconnecting external displays, be it a VGA CRT or a TV. I always have to manually reset it in System Preferences. Funny thing is, in System Preferences, it shows what should be the desktop, and all I have to do is click on the picture thumbnail, and it comes up.
 
Originally posted by huntsman
I had a similar problem during the first week of using my iBook G4. When I selected a new background image in the display preferences, it refused to obey--the background simply wouldn't change. It went away after rebooting.

Adding other peoples' reports, there seems to be a bit of a reliability problem in this critical feature 😀
Click to expand...

I had almost the same problem, with the added oddness of having the desktop get picked for me even, i.e. it changed w/o permission, and did it multiple times! 🙄
 
same problem

I have exactly the same problem in three situations:

1. allmost everytime i disconnect an external projector/beamer
2. sometimes i disconnect a tv from the mini-dvi adapter
3. seldomly when a game changes the resolution

I have a new pb12 1 ghz but had the same problem on my old pb15 ti!
 
It hasn't happened in a while... but today I saw it. I woke my mac up from sleep, and everything was fine for about 5 seconds. Suddenly the screen went dark, shortly followed by a fade into an older desktop picture. I am still running 10.3.1, to many problems with 10.3.2... hopefully 10.3.3 is around the bend... and hopefully that'll be less buggy.
 
i figured i would add a little fuel to the fire. i've noticed this behavior, consistently, since upgrading to os x... switch resolution (connect laptop to crt monitor), and get a blank, blue desktop. i'm waiting for it to be magically fixed in a system update, but so far, no luck. anybody find any related murmurings on the apple site?
 
i cant find anything that would point to a solution. thankfully its only a cosmetic glitch, admitedly an annoying one, but at least its not hurting us
 
I'll add mine... (iBook G4)

I have a picture that I used as a static desktop for a long time. Then I made a folder of other pictures and have them swap on login. Whenever I connect to an external monitor via the mini-vga port it switches to the static picture. I'm assuming that there are two picture settings. One for static and one for rotating. I believe that since the iBook is not meant to handle rotating pictures when connected to an external monitor (similar how you lose the fast user switching cube effect) that it reverts to the static picture. It goes back to rotating desktop when I bring it back to just one screen.

That's my thoughts. That probably doesn't help everybody but it might explain some things.
 
I also have an external CRT hooked up to my laptop. I don't recall having an issues when it is NOT hooked up.

I haven't had the desktop picture mess up in a while. However, I noticed a different issue, when unplugging the mini-VGA port, the iBook freezes, mostly though if I unplugg it while the book is sleeping.

That AppleCare is sounding more like a good idea now.
 
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