iPhoto album as desktop stopped changing pictures

[stcanard]

Okay, I need some help on this one. iPhoto 5.0.1 OSX 10.3.8

For several months now I've had an iPhoto album called "Desktop" that I put my favourite pictures in, selected it as my desktop and checked the "Change picture: every day" option. It's worked perfectly.

Last night I shut my powerbook down, and took it home. When I started up again, I noticed my desktop was the standard Aqua background, not one of my pictures.

When I went to system preferences, I've discovered the "Change Picture" option is greyed out, and it won't change pictures anymore! I didn't even have iPhoto open yesterday...

This is now true for all my iPhoto albums -- if I use the standard folders (Nature/Abstract/etc) I can check the "Change Picture" option, but if I select an iPhoto album it's greyed out.

I've tried all the usual suspects, rebuild my iPhoto library, fixed permissions, created a new album, but none of it works!

Any suggestions? I want my random photos!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Do other folders outside of your iPhoto library work? If they do, then the most likely cause is something within iPhoto. If they don't, then something else is to blame for the issue you're experiencing. I'm not at my Mac right now, so I can't test my own iPhoto 5.0.1 on Mac OS X 10.3.8.

 

[stcanard]

Do other folders outside of your iPhoto library work?

Yup, it's just the iPhoto folders that have stopped working.

If they do, then the most likely cause is something within iPhoto. If they don't, then something else is to blame for the issue you're experiencing. I'm not at my Mac right now, so I can't test my own iPhoto 5.0.1 on Mac OS X 10.3.8.

Well, that's where it gets odd; I didn't touch my iPhoto yesterday, and it's been working fine for me on iPhoto 5.0.1 on OSX 10.3.8 for about 3 weeks (ever since I got iLife 5!) so I have no idea what could have changed!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Test a folder with a mixture of pictures and other documents in it. Does that work as expected? If it doesn't, I suspect that some other document in the iPhoto library folder is confusing the Desktop Picture preferences.

If this turns out to be the cause, the best workaround is to make a folder elsewhere that contains symbolic links (these aren't the same as aliases and must be created using the Terminal) to just the pictures. Once that's done, tell System Preferences to use the folder you just created as the place to get the pictures from. The reason why aliases don't work is because Mac OS X won't "blindly" follow them like it does with symbolic links; therefore, System Preferences wouldn't realize that there are references to pictures in the folder you're telling it to use.

 

[stcanard]

Thanks for the help. I finally thought to check the Apple discussions (I really should remember to do that more often), and apparently this is a problem with iPhoto 5.0.1.

Not sure why it's been working before now, I'm thinking maybe it was left over from my version 4 preferences, and the system was just blindly following it.

The workaround is essentially what you suggested, but there's an easy way: From iPhoto, select all the photos in the album you want and click the "Desktop" button on the bottom of iPhoto. This will automatically create a folder of aliases to the to the photos, open sys preferences and select that folder.

I suspect this is the new way of doing things, and the iPhoto album list is going to disappear. That's too bad, it felt like a much more "integrated" solution.

 

[PeterD42]

Missing my photos on the desktop too

Yes, I also have discovered the loss of using my favourite photos through system preferences. I will try what you have suggested and report back

 

[PeterD42]

They're back

Hi, Did what you said and went through iPhoto, selected the photos I wanted and then shared them to the desktop. Things are now back where they were.
It is easy enough but not documented in the What's New section of iPhoto.
It is in the help file:

Making a photo your desktop picture

The background of your screen is called the desktop. iPhoto makes it easy for you to assign any picture in the photo library as your desktop image.

1. Select the photo in the photo library or an album.

2. Choose Share > Desktop.

You can also have your desktop image cycle through a series of photos. Select an album or group of photos, choose Share > Desktop, and choose how often you want the picture to change from the "Change picture" pop-up menu.

If you want to change your desktop picture back to one of the images that comes with Mac OS X, open System Preferences and click Desktop & Screen Saver.

To create the proper composition for your desktop picture, crop it to the correct size ratio for your display.

 

[stcanard]

You can also have your desktop image cycle through a series of photos. Select an album or group of photos, choose Share > Desktop, and choose how often you want the picture to change from the "Change picture" pop-up menu.

Yup, but this is very annoying because now I have two things to manage, the original album, then remembering to export them to the Desktop folder.

It was much nicer when I could just point my desktop to an album of favourites then not worry about it.

Hopefully this will be fixed in 5.0.2