No wallpaper in Sonoma after upgarding.

this absolutely worked!!

MRYFLYGUY

User level:

Level 2

164 points

Oct 11, 2023 8:35 AM in response to rony-z

To get your wallpaper back from a black screen,

Open the Terminal App

Type "killall Dock" (no quotes)

Press return

This is my second reply since I just got off of yet another hour-long call with a VERY helpful senior advisor. She advised me that this is NOW A KNOWN ISSUE to Apple Engineers. She found a number of work-arounds suggested to try until they fix the problem, but all of them were ones I had tried already. A couple of them worked until the next shut-down or restart. None of them lasted. She said we'll need to wait for the next upgrade in the system for a fix.

That is the normal behavior when your windows fly away upon clicking on the background to show you your desktop and widgets.

Another click will restore your windows to their position and will remove the border:

Tip: If your desktop widgets are hidden by other windows, click the wallpaper to move the open windows away so you can see the widgets.

If you don’t want the open windows to move away when you click the desktop, you can change the setting “Click wallpaper to reveal desktop” in Desktop & Dock settings. Then clicking the desktop only moves the windows away when you’re using Stage Manager.

Add and customize widgets on Mac - Apple Support

Sorry about the above, the post was removed because I had a screen shot with some personal info.

Until Apple addresses this, here's a quick way to fix the problem during reboot/login.

First, create an Automator Application script that runs the "killall Dock" command. If you're not familiar with Automator, try it. It's really easy. It should look like this. You can test the script in Automator by running the script. If you have a back wallpaper while doing this, your selected wallpaper should display.

Next move or save the Automator application script to your Applications directory.

Finally, go to System Settings/General/Login Items and add the Automator application script to "Open at Login." This will run the command after restarting/logging in and your wallpaper should appear.

Interesting way to address this but it works. If you log in/out or restart a lot, you can set I\up an Automator Application script and run it automatically at login. Gives you a fresh Desktop every time.

Dogcow-Moof wrote:

That is the normal behavior when your windows fly away upon clicking on the background to show you your desktop and widgets.

Indeed. It didn't even dawn on me. That's what I get for posting before 5 a.m.

I spent 2 hours with an advisor then a senior advisor, uninstalling and reinstalling Sonoma. It worked for a while. Then after frustrating my computer the wallpaper was gone again. Apple needs to fix this bug!

My experience has been similar. I've spent perhaps four total hours with senior advisors. Reinstalled Sonoma three days ago. For two days the wallpaper worked, so yesterday I closed the case with Applecare. Today the screen is black again. They want me to wipe my iMac clean and reinstall everything, since they think the problem is with the "User." I'm not eager to do that!

I have spent 6 or 7 hours on the phone or in texts with Apple Support trying to fix this problem, no luck. They don’t know or have any solution. I have restarted in safe mode, rescue mode, I have totally erased my computer twice and started over, all to no avail. I have given Apple access while we tried to find a solution… nada. In the end I was left with no answer, no hope other than wait and see, and a wounded, semi-functional iMac computer (listed a Sonoma compatible, by the way) for the last two weeks. Having owned 9 macs since 1986 (512ke), this is an unprecedented problem. Support is evidently still searching for an answer on this one.

Bruce - does your Mac work as expected otherwise? There are a lot of problems with Wallpaper and Spaces in Sonoma. Try this.

Go to Settings>Wallpaper and select an image under "Pictures."

Open the Terminal App

Type "killall Dock" (no quotes)

Press return

If this works and the picture you selected above displayed as expected, try selecting one of the Apple provided wallpaper pictures and see if it works (not a"Dynamic" wallpaper). It should. Then you can start fooling with the Dynamic wallpapers.

same problem - the wallpaper shows up and is selected in the settings window, but the home screen is black. anybody else with this problem using dropbox? it's caused some weird quirks with my laptop after upgrading, but i've been able to sort those out.

My fix for this bug, found on another thread: 1) Go to Launchpad; 2) Click on Mission Control; 3) The word, Desktop, should appear at the top of the screen; 4) Click on Desktop and a small replication of the your black screen desktop will appear at the top of the screen; 5) Click on the large plus sign at the top right of the screen; 6) A second desktop replication will appear, and should have the wallpaper that you have selected; 7) Click on that corrected desktop. Voila. I don't know whether I'll have to use this workaround every time I restart. But so far, it's fine.

I don't know why that would happen. Perhaps someone else does.

To get your wallpaper back from a black screen,

Open the Terminal App

Type "killall Dock" (no quotes)

Press return