iOS 16.1 Lock Screen Wallpaper Display

I just updated my iPhone 11 to iOS 16.2 and now my lock screen is displaying just a black screen with the time, flashlight, and camera icons. I restarted the phone and verified that Settings/Wallpaper is set to select the wallpaper image that I have been using for years. After restarting the iPhone, the correct wallpaper was displayed but the next time the display went to sleep, it was again just showing the black background image.

iPhone 11

Posted on Oct 25, 2022 11:24 AM

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Question marked as Best answer

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.

Posted on Oct 29, 2022 8:44 AM

327 replies

Nov 15, 2022 6:40 AM in response to gestler

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


Nov 15, 2022 10:08 AM in response to Mr Ryzen

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.

Nov 16, 2022 7:28 AM in response to shelly283

Returning to the problem this thread is about - - I've posted on Product Feedback - Apple several times, so apple should be aware of the wallpaper changing to a black problem. Fixing it may take some time unless the community can discover a reliable way of duplicating the problem.


There have been suggestions (speculation?) that perhaps the problem happens after a OS update - like the update from 16 to 16.1 or 16.1.1 and that a complete reset would resolve the issue. Of course, a complete reset would involve a reinstall of the OS and loss of all settings and data on phone so unless you have a good, reliable backup it might be quite difficult with no guarantee of satisfactory result.

Nov 16, 2022 7:34 AM in response to Tom59

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.

Nov 16, 2022 9:00 AM in response to mrfabric561

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.).

iOS 16.1 Lock Screen Wallpaper Display

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