Aerial wallpapers stuck on blue whale in Tahoe 26.2

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Please download and run Etrecheck.  The free version is sufficient.

Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and after clicking on the Reply button use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

rchaas wrote:

For a week or so now, I have noticed that aerial wallpapers are stuck on a blue whale. I had it set on all aerial, continuous. screensaver was set on auto. That had been working fine until recently. I am on Tahoe 26.2. I noticed another thread about this, about a year ago, with no resolution. Hoping for a solution. Switching to every 12 hours, I'll se if that helps, but would prefer continuous. Others have said that the duration doesn't fix the issue.

There does seem to be some issue here. Make changes, compare your results— I do not have a straight answer.

you can try A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

your macOS is current 26.2 — maybe the next point update will help resolve your issue

current stable release of Tahoe including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 26.2

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support

Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

Disabling BitDefender does not disable all of it's supporting files;

[Loaded] com.bitdefender.upgrade.plist (Bitdefender SRL - installed 2025-11-26)

Executable: /Library/Bitdefender/AVP/antivirus.bundle/BDUpgDaemon

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint.  Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).  

Additionally, a new study ("Apple Offers Apps With Ties to Chinese Military”) is specifically about VPN apps in Apple’s App Store.

What that in mind you should uninstall according to the developers' instructions BitDefender, and all VPNs, i.e. HotspotShield.