Unable to change wallpaper on my Mac post Sonoma update

Sonoma on my iMac

I used system settings wallpaper option:

I wanted to change my desktop background to a pattern.

After you pick the pattern there is no button for DONE or SET

I can get a pattern to show on Lock Screen but it goes away after I log in

I have the same problem. I have a 'Desktop Pictures' Album in my Photos app and I selected that. At first, it was changing photos, but only in order. I checked the Randomly box and now I am stuck with the Apple Vineyard. It won't display any photos when I have chosen the icon with the random arrows on it.

Finally called Apple Support. Spent two hours on the phone with some very helpful folks. They were at a loss too as to why the new upgrade caused all the issues. To make a long story short, they had me delete the Sonoma upgrade and reinstall it. It was scary as I wasn't sure I had everything saved in iCloud. It took about an hour, but it all came back and my whole iMac is working better than it ever did. As a side note, my husband has the exact same computer as mine and his did the same ting mine did the next day after my reinstall. He just called them and said he wanted a reinstall so he wouldn't have to go through the diagnostics and steps I had to do. We are both happy with the results, but there definitely needs to be a bug fix for this issue.

The work-around right now is to export the photos from the Photos Album that you want to use as Wallpaper, into a regular folder on your Mac. Then in the Wallpaper panel, choose that folder and you can randomize all the photos in that folder. So the bug is that it won't display all photos in an album in the Photos app, instead, you get the Apple Vineyard pic.

@Richard Amis: thank you, yours is the only reply that seems to work for me. The logout/login didn't work, so for now I've individually clicked about 20 images from my "backgrounds" album, then clicked the shuffle again. These 20 images are now shuffled.

And waiting for the next Sonoma release in the hope this is fixed.

Apple just posted an update to fix the problems (or some of them) to this disaster called Sonoma that we have all been griping about for the past month. Go to your system prefs, general, updates or go directly to Apple to download the fix.

Previously, if you chose Preferences>Wallpaper and selected a desktop picture folder containing hundreds of images, the wallpaper would change sequentially every "X" minutes; when the computer was shut down and then restarted, the wallpaper would continue to change sequentially, starting from the last wallpaper displayed. However, after upgrading to Mac OS Sonoma, this no longer happens, i.e. each time the Mac is restarted, the wallpaper starts from the beginning without following the sequence, as if it were reset at each restart. Sounds like a system bug to me. Any suggestions?

Sonoma 14.2 does not fix the random wallpaper from a 'Photos' album. The work-around is still to use a folder of images saved on your Mac and it will randomize the images in a folder, but not from an Album in Photos.

The screen saver also doesn't work and displays no photos / I have only got the desktop to change photos by doing what the person said and click each photo even though I have over 400 its ridiculous !! If you don't do that it stays on the same photos and just rotates those over and over.

I tried the _click on the ones you want to shuffle, then click on the shuffle icon on the item below the folder's name__, and it appears to be working. The folder was constructed in Photos and downloaded to the desktop. The download worked, BUT it didn't place the downloads into a folder. I need to see what I did wrong there. There are only 35 photos so it was not a problem. I then told the wallpaper system setting to choose that folder, did the "click the shufflers" routine. I set it to cycle every minute, and it is. I will update you if something goes awry.

That is my problem. Only if I click through each photo in the album will it recycle. I have pictures of my now 47 yr old daughter - even if just using the baby pictures it would be some 200+ that I would need to click on. Does Apple ever talk to REAL PEOPLE over age 25 to see what we use?

I'm having the same problem with Sonoma 14.4 (it didn't happen until this update). I can choose one photo, but when I choose "All Photos" it goes back to the Apple vineyard. I miss my daily slide show!!

This fix makes no sense in mac iOS 14.4.1. there is no mission control. There is only control center that does not present any "space" to add or delete. ?? If your still attending to this issue please explain in more specific terms what your fix is . thanks

I noticed when changing that it took a bit of time for the wallpaper (at least the Landscape ones) to download after I clicked on them.