Wallpapers appearing upside down in macOS Tahoe 26.3

Chomp81 wrote:

With 26.3, my wallpapers started appearing upside down.

I have a folder with my favourite photos, and every 15 minutes it changes the wallpaper. I had this for the past 10 years, and in 26.3, some of the photos started to appear upside down.

Anyone else is having this issue?

Custom Wallpaper ?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256246359?sortBy=oldest_first

Open the photo in Preview application

Rotate it until it looks correct

Go to File >>Export

Choose a different file format like .png and High Quality

Important >> Save as a new file

Then set that exported file as wallpaper.

This rewrites the image without problematic orientation metadata.

jentwins wrote:

Sorry, but it is not because the photos were taken with the iPhone upside down. All my photos are taken rightside up, and have displayed perfectly for years, until the last Tahoe update. They only appear upside down, and sideways, when used as wallpaper.

Open one of these files in Preview, and press Command-I.

You are bound to see that it says: Orientation 3 (Rotated 180º)

Now export (not just save as) that same file, open the exported file, and do the same. It will say: Orientation 1 (Normal).

Try THIS last file in wallpaper. It will NOT display upside down.

Chomp81 wrote:

With 26.3, my wallpapers started appearing upside down.

I have a folder with my favourite photos, and every 15 minutes it changes the wallpaper. I had this for the past 10 years, and in 26.3, some of the photos started to appear upside down.

Anyone else is having this issue?

There are some known bugs yes.

Duplicate your photos move them to a new folder— different from where they are located now and compare your results.

If necessary rotate the images in the new folder to get them to appear in your in wallpaper oriented correctly...

Command R will rotate an image

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

Definitely began in 26.3. I use an iCloud album (phots of my dog) that randomly shuffles on wakeup, and this just began happening. For me it only happens when I set wallpaper to "Fill Screen". "Fit to screen" or "Center" doesn't seem to do it.

Report it via https://www.apple.com/feedback/ , hopefully it will be fixed in a future update.

hunter240 wrote:

How can a company be so Dumb to not listen when you have a problem with their software. It's got to be an easy fix for them to do? This is my first time posting here. Beginning to think it will do No Good. Some photos are correctly displayed. hope they fix it soon. We will see!!!

Folks, it's a bug and it has been reported to Apple. Companies prioritize their use of engineering resources. My guess would be that Apple prioritizes security issues/fixes, and maybe next would come issues or bugs that seriously impact usability of the computer. Perhaps this is seen as something more like a cosmetic bug but since the computer still works fine, it MIGHT get lower priority in the list of things to fix next. Also, there is some delay when OS updates are made until they are rolled out as there is acceptance testing and soak that requires some time. I used to work on engineering software with a user/customer base and am familiar with the bug report/diagnose/fix/release cycle. It's not instantaneous. Rushed updates sometimes can result in new problems.

"It's got to be an easy fix for them to do"

Unless it's not. Because many (most?) users do not see this. I don't see it. So now Apple needs to figure out how to reproduce it reliably, and what configurations cause it to happen. This can take time.

The best thing users can do here to accelerate the fix is to report it to Apple https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos/

The more reports on the issue, the faster it will rise to the top of the list.

Complaining in a user forum might be a way to vent but it won't impact the speed of the fix. If there was some setting or parameter that a user could share with the community that makes this bug go away, then that would be helpful in Discussions but I don't think this bug can be addressed that way.

Solution I found is to edit the photo in Photos and crop it slightly. Hit Done. And then save it as wallpaper. Now it will be upright instead of rotated. Hope Apple soon fixes this bug as it is very annoying.

mcplat13 wrote:

I have the same issue. When following these steps to fix the bug, my photo shows in Preview right side up, so what to do? Apple should issue a fix for this.

Did you update to 26.4? It came out yesterday, and should have fixed this.

By the way, you'd get it "fixed" by merely exporting the file again from Preview (not rotating anything). But apparently it is no longer necessary.

Pickleballforever wrote:

I also am having issue with my long standing wallpaper photo, suddenly appearing upside down. I tried changing photos and the same thing happened. This is new since I installed Tahoe 26.3. Apple, please fix this!!!!

The best way to accelerate the fix is to report it to Apple https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos/ as Apple Discussions is a user to user forum, not a feedback path to Apple engineering.

Problem is fixed with the latest update. Thanks Apple!

jim505 wrote:

My MacBook Air is set to "Center" and some photos still come out displayed incorrectly. But it seems to be quite random, in that some photos in a given batch (all taken with the same iPhone during a specific trip) show up rotated while others do not. How can this be explained away with incorrectly interpreting EXIF location and rotation data?

Simple, really.

The user may have taken some photos with the iPhone positioned like this:

and other photos with the iPhone positioned like this:

Obviously they should both appear correctly, and they do, in Preview, Photos, Safari, etc.

There is a bug in how the wallpaper is displayed, that shows one of them upside down.

Now some users report that it is not so, but I have consistently reproduced this behavior in 26.3.*

Having the same problem, I redownloaded the OS and seemed to fix it.

Psych13 wrote:

Thank you Thomas-I couldn't agree with you more. Like the other contributers-I have had the same photo/image as my wallpaper (a beautiful photo of a sunrise) and each time I shut down and restarted my Macbook Air-it would appear as it should-until the latest OS Tahoe update. The issue is with the update, and not with our photos.

Opening our photo(s) in Preview is a step we should not have to take each time we restart our Apple devices.

I'm in a chat session right now with Apple

Knowing what one knew than and then, now

Is not going to change anything until Apple fixes this faux pas - no ?

Chomp81 wrote:

Nope, problem is not solved in Tahoe 26.3.1.

It's a disgrace. I hope they fix it and it is sorted in 26.4; which I assume will be the OS for the new MacBooks next week.

keep your fingers crossed...

To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your feedback here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos

Anchor_Steamer wrote:

I have started to take pictures for Wallpaper where it matters less if the picture appears upside down. My photos are fine when viewed in the Photos app and there is no orientation problem on my iPhone, which is also on 26.3.1 now.

Yeah, it's a very annoying bug that came with the 26.3 "upgrade" to my MacBook Air. My laptop is also on 26.3.1.

Yes, it is a bug, but I have to say it comes about because of us, iPhone users, take photos with the iPhone "upside down" - if we can say that. Funny that on my iPhone 16 I have two very easy "shutter" buttons, and they are on opposite sides of the phone (the volume button, and the "camera" button). On my previous phone, the volume button was the default shutter button, but that is upside down!

The orientation of the photo is recorded in the metadata, and the iPhone itself, as well as Photos or Preview or other applications on the Mac deal with it gracefully. I expect this to be fixed soon.