Wallpaper goes out of focus

[fhall1]

M2 MacBook Air running macOS 12.5. I’m not sure if this is a Monterey issue, an M2 issue or what.

I am using a Dell P2715Q 4K external monitor with the Air (through a Caldigit TS3 dock). I used this same setup with my 2019 MacBook Pro and everything was fine (except I was using macOS 10.15.7).

I used Migration Assistant to move everything over from the 2019 to the M2 machine.

The first screenshot shows what my desktop used to look like. Note that any macOS apps/windows/etc AND the desktop image are very clear.

The second screenshot shows what I’m getting now. Note that the apps/windows/etc are sharp and clear, but the desktop background is out of focus. When I first login the background is clear, but a few seconds after windows start appearing, the background goes fuzzy. It’s like it’s trying to blur everything so my focus is on the foreground windows. It happens if I set the monitor native resolution or scaled. The interesting thing is that I have the laptop set as the “extended” monitor in the two monitor setup and its wallpaper also goes fuzzy.

Any ideas what’s going on - and how to fix it?

 

[chabig]

I'm struggling to help you figure this out. But I see that the zoom changed between the two photos. I don't know what might cause that, but check your desktop picture settings in System Preferences. What method have you chosen to scale your photo for the screen? Even if it's correct, changing it to something else and then changing it back might help.




Edit: I don't think it's what I first suggested. I just noticed that the screen resolution itself differs greatly between your two pictures. That's the likely cause. Your second photo has the screen resolution set too high for that picture. There aren't enough pixels in the photo to fill the desktop.

 

[fhall1]

Picture resolution isn’t the issue. Those two shots are from two different macs only for illustrative purposes so people could see what I’m talking about. When I migrated everything from the 2019 MacBook Pro to the new Air the background went from perfectly clear to blurred. Same wallpaper, same monitor settings, scaling, etc.

One thing I tried after my initial post was to boot into safe mode and lo and behold the wallpaper stays crystal clear. I also have the app WallCal installed. When not in safe mode and I toggle it to be the “frontmost” app it is in clear focus, but when I let it go back to normal operation (i.e. other apps can display in front of it), the WallCal window gets all out focus. So, with that, I assume that I have a login item or app starting at login causing the background to fade and lose focus. Sound reasonable? Whatever app it is worked fine under Catalina but not under Monterey. Now I get to try disabling them all and add them back one by one to see which one it is.

 

[arw]

I would start with the app that displays the clock in the right bottom.
Good luck anyhow.

 

[fhall1]

I would start with the app that displays the clock in the right bottom.
Good luck anyhow.

OMG!!! a thousand thanks! ClockDesk was that app - and as soon as I quit that, everything was back to normal. Time to hit up their support!