Wallpaper disappears

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Level 1

11 points

Wallpaper disappears

Hi,

I'm running the latest version of mountain lion on a macbook pro retina. I've set up the desktop wall paper to be one of my own pictures of the iPhoto library. It works pretty well until I switch off my computer and start it again. It always uses another old picture of mine. It is not bothering me since it is a minor bug. But I somehow can't believe, that such a sofisticated os like Mountain lion is unable to handle a desktop wall paper picture setting right. Any idea how to solve the problem?

Posted on Jun 9, 2013 2:39 AM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,647 points

Jun 9, 2013 2:52 AM in response to Henning77

Henning,

the path to the current Desktop picture is stored in theDesktop preferences file in your User Library:

You may want to trash the file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist

from your User Library and then log off and log on again. But this will require to rest all Desktop preferences again.

In Mt. Lion your User Librry is hidden.

To reveal it in the Finder, open Finder, select Go > Go to Folder, type ~/Library/Preferences and delete com.apple.desktop.plist

Léonie

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Answer 2

Henning77 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jun 10, 2013 3:22 AM in response to léonie

The file is still hidden and I can't find it. Any ideas, how to show all files in finder?

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Answer 3

Henning77 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jun 10, 2013 3:31 AM in response to Henning77

Found a terminal hack for it:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE;killall Finder

to undo it:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE;killall Finder

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

194,647 points

Jun 10, 2013 5:11 AM in response to Henning77

That is puzzling. Your User Library (the foler Library in your Home folder) is hidden but not the folders inside the Library.

Try a different way to show your User Library:

Click on your Desktop to bring the Finder forward.
Go to the main menu bar and select the "GO" menu entry.
Hold down the alt/opt key ⌥, until "Library" appears in the drop-down menu.
Select "Library" to reveal and open the folder.
Then scroll don to the "Preferences" folder and remove com.apple.desktop.plist

Does that work?

Léonie

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Answer 5

Henning77 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jun 12, 2013 3:15 AM in response to léonie

I was able to delete the file, but after a restart the problem is there again. Is there sort of a Master Desptob backround?

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Answer 6

léonie

Level 10

194,647 points

Jun 12, 2013 4:03 AM in response to Henning77

Is there sort of a Master Desptob backround?

There is an alias to a Default Desktop in your System library:

/System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg

and that should link to:

/Library/Desktop Pictures/Galaxy.jpg

I would not touch these links, however.

Since problem occured again after restarting, remove the systempreferences. plist as well:

~/Library/Precerences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist

See this User Tip:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4301

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Answer 7

Henning77 Author

Level 1

11 points

Jul 2, 2013 1:00 AM in response to léonie

Hi LeonieDF,

thank you for the additional idea, unfortunately it was not successful. Somehow the desktop picture is still returning to an old one. The interesting fact is, that this desktop wallpaper was never a wallpaper on the machine, I now have the issue with. It was on my old laptop some month ago. I migrated all information from the old machine to the new one.

It is bothering, but not to bad to go to the genius bar with the machine.

Anyway, thank you for your ideas and help

Regards

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