Random wallpaper from Photo Album won't work

[djc6]

Last night my wife upgraded from a Mid-2014 13" MacBook Pro to a M3 15" MacBook Air.

The old laptop was running macOS 11 Big Sur (latest it supported) and it had the capability of changing wall paper with random photos of our family from a Photo Album.

In Sonoma, I go to Wallpaper settings, "Add Folder or Album" and select the Photo Album, click the Rotate button

to shuffle the images, specify the time interval they should change at, selected Random to mix up the order - and nothing happens. I've tried different albums, turning random on/off, changing the time interval - nothing works. Any ideas?

 

[djc6]

Curiously, randomize "All Photos" on my Mac Mini also running Sonoma 14.4 worked ONCE. I was able to configure it, and it randomly changed images every 5 seconds.

Then I set the background to a static image, then when I went back to randomize "All Photos" it no longer works, I see the default Sonoma background from the OS

This made me wonder if its a corrupt plist or something somewhere with my wallpaper settings.

I notice when I change wallpaper on my mac mini, ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.wallpaper/Store/Index.plist updates - I tried deleting this on my wife's MacBook Air, didn't help.