my 5k iMac "cannot open desktop and screen saver prefernces pane" nor can it open "display preferences pane" under system preferences; what is going on? I restarted in safe mode and tried several other fixes from earlier questions but nothing changed.
iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
First follow the instructions in this support article.
If an iPhoto or Aperture library is the source of your desktop pictures, it may need to be rebuilt, or you may need to update the application to the latest version.
Otherwise, continue as below.
Back up all data.
In the Finder, hold down the option key and select
Go ▹ Library
from the menu bar. From the Library folder, delete the following item, if it exists:
Caches/com.apple.systempreferences
and move the following items to the Desktop, if they exist:
Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db
Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
Launch System Preferences and test. If you still have the issue, put the items you moved to the Desktop back where they came from and post again. Otherwise, delete the items.
tried both. no change.
also contacted apple support and reset the SMC and PRAM. No change.
The "Caches/com.apple.systempreferences" and "Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist" files did not exist. But the "Application Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db" file was there. Moved it and tried, but no luck. Then moved it back.
forgot to mention: there are zero files in my iPhoto. I have not uploaded any pics. My previous desktop was just a pic i saved to a folder on the HD.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take one of the actions that you're having trouble with. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
ok, here it is!
12/6/14 4:34:29.145 PM System Preferences[485]: ### com.apple.preference.desktopscreeneffect instantiatePrefPaneObject exception:-[NSTaggedPointerString getCharacters:range:]: Range {0, 2} out of bounds; string length 1
i went to: library/application support/dock and deleted the "desktoppicutre.db" file and now it all works fine.
i did this step but just put the file on the desktop and it did not work. deleting the file worked.
Thanks for your help.
my 5k iMac "cannot open desktop and screen saver prefernces pane" nor can it open "display preferences pane" under system preferences; what is going on?
