iOS 16.1 Lock Screen Wallpaper Display

No, I didn't say that - I do, however, assume that because this is an Apple forum, someone for Apple may be monitoring it and that would make it aware that some of us are having a problem. I actually have no insight into what Apple knows and how it might respond to anything - but prefer to make the assumption that it reads its stuff and responds accordingly.

I also know that not being to reliably duplicate a problem in a testing environment makes it extremely hard (impossible?) to craft a solution and am therefore advocating detailing the problem as it has happened to you. (Yes, I do have the problem randomly occurring on my 14 Pro Max and so far have not been able to force it to manifest) .

Giulio - - Yes, I used it and left my iOS version in the comments field (16.1). BTW: I used my official Apple user name instead of the one I use in general "community" forums (Allen Markham) - - a long-time habit that is hard to break.

I have been having the same issue, I lost my Lock Screen wallpaper after upgrading to 16.1. I spent a lot of time tweaking the photo so that it fit my screen perfectly.

As to the people who keeping suggesting we add a new lock screen, I don’t want to. I want my original Lock Screen with no widgets. Even without adding widgets, the “extra” lock screens drain my battery.

Hi bazoo42,

I am like you, I have a particular wallpaper that I have used for years and do not want to change it either.

What I have done, is created a new wallpaper and accepted it as my default. I then went straight back into it and changed again, this time from the new one back to my original one.

After it failed a couple of times, I repeated the operation and now I have had four full days without a black screen in sight.

I installed the new iOS update, 16.1.1, and it has solved the wallpaper problem for me. My old wallpaper now persists after the phone goes to sleep and wakes back up, and after I close and reopen various apps. The "disappearing wallpaper act" has not recurred in the few hours since I upgraded to 16.1.1.

For me, a decision at this point is quite premature. Again, for me, the problem has been quite random, sometimes going for several days before showing up. For instance today - it had been working fine for maybe 4 days, but I walked upstairs and the next time I looked at the phone the screen was black. The automation opened the front door, but that was the only difference between seeing the screen when I got out of the car and arriving at my front door. For me, it will take a bit more time to declare the problem fixed - - hopefully I'll be able to do so. (Note - I've never been able to duplicate the circumstances that will force the black screen to present, it seems to be truly random).

Well, that didn't last long. I installed 16.1.1 this morning and by noon the wallpaper turned black again. The phone had been on my desk with the always-on display showing (I didn't notice if the dimmed wallpaper was showing or had turned black) and when I swiped it on the wallpaper was black - no apps running, and nothing timed out. So it would seem that NO! 16.1.1 did not solve the problem. I've now reapplied the wallpaper using my automation and will keep track of how well it lasts - FYI: the automation changes the wallpaper every morning at 6:30. I might add that usually restarting the phone will bring back the wallpaper, but that fails sometimes, the automation is the only reliable way of getting the wallpaper to reappear. (Running my automation is basically the same as selecting a wallpaper, except it changes the wallpaper daily with a selection from Bing photos).

Yes, that may work, another workable method would be to ditch my iPhone 14 Pro Max and return to Samsung (I really liked my Fold) or Pixel, but neither are solutions to the problem just ways to avoid it.

Without being able to duplicate the problem - reliably be able cause it to occur - I'm not sure what I would tell Apple. "Sometimes my wallpaper turns black for no reason". But we can give it a try and perhaps, reference this thread. (I had hoped that as this is a tread on Apple's Community, that someone from Apple would be at least aware of our 6 pages of comments).

One more thing to try: when I called AppleCare about this about a week ago, they had me do a Hard Reset (which entailed no loss of data, but this may assume your iPhone is backed up to iCloud - note this softer than a Factory Reset). It’s worth a try - maybe then 16.1.1 would indeed solve your wallpaper problem.

Several days ago I did a 'forced' (hard?) restart and after completion, the problem returned. It can't hurt but doesn't seem to be a fix for every case. This would be much easier if a direct cause was found, but I haven't come across it yet.

Been fighting with this for an hour...giving up my favorite photos on both homescreen and Lock Screen... almost ready to chuck the phone at the nearest brick wall..... pathetic.

Apparently, you can't have separate photos for Home Screen and Lock Screen anymore.... WOW... everything's a ****** "pair".... well FU Apple!

Apple #developerepicsuperfail

I fought with it long enough but it's off the chart BAD human interface code. -this was NOT this twisted before 16.x

Whoever the HUD is at Apple, is painfully obvious its not who it used to be.

Now, I've discovered another bug: If there is a person in the photo that you use for the screen saver, -depending on how tall in the photo they are, if the head of the person is high enough to reach the time display --> check it out the persons head covers up some part of the numbers in the time.

So if you wake up and touch your phone display to look - the persons head covers up part of the clock now.

Since the onset of this behavior (blackscreen instead of wallpaper) at exactly 16.1.1 update - I have found exactly ONE sequence of actions that fixes it:

Completely delete your old wallpaper/screensaver customization. (Yes, make a new one, and make it something else, and make it active). - THEN delete the old one. (You can't delete one if it's the only one as its still active).

THEN - shutdown/reboot your phone. (Don't need hard reset. just normal settings/general/shut down -after its down, then hold right side button to restart.)

THEN go put your old photos back into the "new but different" one you made and make it active.

Apparently this cleans whatever metadata was being held out of the old migrated one's setting and cleans this issue up.

This took a lot of experimentation, but appears to work.

So far - no more random black screen after phone has been idle.

However, for me and my 14 Pro Max, the problem started while using 16.0 and persisted through subsequent updates. And just to be clear, I've had the problem without the phone being "idle" - I use AOD, so the phone display is always being refreshed, though at a slower refresh rate and a lower brightness, but not "idle". And I have experienced days long periods of not having a problem only to have it seemly randomly remanisfist itself. Personally, I have yet to find a fix that works and severl that seem to for days long periods of time.

I've now update to the public beta for the upcoming 16.2. As a beta user I can report any problems encountered while the code is being built by the developers at Apple. (Note: I wouldn't recomment anyone using a beta if they are not familiar with the kinds of problems that may occure and on a device they depend on for 'mission critical' situations.).