iOS 16.1 Lock Screen Wallpaper Display

bring the original photo up on the iPhone screen and take a screenshot/photo of the photo. Then add that new photo as a wallpaper selection.

bring the original photo up on the iPhone screen and take a screenshot/photo of the photo. Then add that new photo as a wallpaper selection.

I have the iPhone11Pro and the same thing happened I believe with the update to iOS16.0.2, as of iOS 16.1 the issue remains. Everyday my 7+ year old wallpaper disappears and both the home screen background and the lock screen become completely black.

I think this was caused by a faulty migration of the background settings between iOS versions.

First I decided to recover the original wallpaper image by following a series of complicated steps. The image is store as a .cpbitmap file, which I believe is an Apple proprietary image format used in iOS and iPadOS. This is what I did in case anyone is curious. Without ever deleting my current wallpaper (even if not showing in the main screen, it still appeared on the Settings app). Instructions using Windows 11 2H22:

1. Using iTunes make a full backup of your iPhone
2. Download, install, and run iExplorer on a Sandbox instance
3. Copy the main plist and manifest files to a folder inside Sandbox
4. Tell iExplorer to open that folder as the iTunes backup location
5. Insite iExplorer look for Home > Springboard and then make note of the path for "LockBackground.cpbitmap" and OriginalLockBackground.cpbitmap, it can be "86" or "7c" or something else -- I had these two files, perhaps you will have more or less files, but at least the one
6. Go back to your iTunes backup and copy just the two alphanumeric folders into the same folder inside Sandbox
7. Tell iExplorer to export the .cpbitmap files and copy those from the Sandbox back to your desktop
8. Open your browser on https://cpbitmap.github.io/ or https://www.dcode.fr/cpbitmap-format
9. Upload and convert to PNG, JPG, or TIFF
10. Using iTunes, Dropbox, or even emailing to yourself, send the photo back to your phone and set it as a background

I hope it works for you.

I’ve managed to have two different photos one for Initial Screen and a different one for Lock Screen and now my only issue is a black screen when my phone is in landscape orientation. I just added a new wallpaper (even though I wanted to use my previous photos) and in the “pair” screen, first clicked on “blur” then chose the photo I wanted. Worked for black Lock Screen issue as well just by choosing same wallpaper theme. Clicking “blur” and then pairing.

It keeps happening to me every time I let the battery die. But I am able to get it back every time as well. I select a different wallpaper as my default. Then reboot the phone and switch back to my regular wallpaper. It has worked every time but it is annoying.

Ok.. I do NOT know if this is permanent. But it is definitely the focus settings that are clashing even if you don’t use focus. I made a new wallpaper for the do not disturb focus and chose that as my lock screen for that focus. I then went into my wallpapers from settings. My old ones are set as current. These are the ones I want to keep using. I made a new set of wallpapers for home/lock screen, set those then as current, went out of the settings to see to see my NEW current wallpaper is being used, made sure my do not disturb is off, went back into my wallpapers, set then my old ones as current and voila. My old ones are now back and have been so for a few days. I think it has something to do with a bug where the wallpaper crashes periodically when focus lock screen and iphone lock screen is the same image. Hope this helps.

Take a 'screen shot' of your favorite wallpaper image by bringing it up on the screen and snapping a photo of it. The select that new photo as your wallpaper. We did that several weeks ago and the new one is still working. Seems like there may be an issue with older picture formats that allows the wallpaper to go to black in the iOS updates. The newer photo apparently resolves that.

Think like an apple dev. That means break something that intuitively works. In this case, make the DO NOT DISTURB function black out the screen wallpaper but not the white text. To fix, simply turn DO NOT DISTURB off. This will restore your lock screen. This is why the problem returns after people "fix" it. Because your apple dev thinks he/she knows better than the user. Welcome to iPhone ****. Thanks Tim.

I suggest an alternative, like a message "Do Not Disturb will back your screen click here to undo that." OR better yet, let them opt in to it. There a UIX feature that apple would never dream of thinking, because of course, they know better than their consumers.

I have hence why I’m on this thread as I had the same problem then realised sleep was on, once sleep was turned off the Lock Screen photo came back

I updated still black screen until selected as new and used from pictures my old screen. If you hadn’t saved perhaps do screenshots of the original then use it to add as new?

Take your phone out of “Do not Disturb” mode.

I have worked around this issue by going to Settings/Wallpaper/+Add New Wallpaper and then selecting the wallpaper image I used in the past.still having issues with my google map date

Its the "pairing" code they introduced..

Now each "Home Screen" wallpaper is paired (stored,indexed) with a particular "Lock Screen" wallpaper..the "pairs" can now be flipped between..but they remain as a pair... You can configure multiple pairs..but when you change, you change to a new "pair" no more individual setting each one.

It seems migrating the old pics ... from unpaired to the new paired storage is where it can have a problem and cause the loss of permanence on the home screen one.. hance it may eventually show up black (dropped out of cached memory it was added to on reboot)...which os why a reboot "temporarily" solves this issue ad well.

Someone jusy needs to fix that code.. but since it will only affect those who just migrated up to iOS 16 they might choose to never fix it

I got my original wallpaper back again!

I went for a nap earlier and switched my focus to "Sleep", as I do every day.

On waking, I switched sleep focus off. I then thought that I would just try my original wallpaper to see what happens. Would you believe it? It is now working properly again.

@Apple this might be a clue for you??

I thought I had it fixed, but like others, it has come back. Seems to happen overnight. I have to do just as jbk134 says:

1. 1. select a different wallpaper as default
   2. reboot phone, then
   3. switch back to original wallpaper

A total PITA.