Desktop Backgrounds Are Gone!

System Preferences->Desktop & Screen Saver->Desktop
When I click on Apple Images & folders on the left side of the window (under Apple Images), all that appears in the box is a white screen. How do I get my desktop images back?

Anyone?

Your desktop images are stored in /Macintosh HD/Library/Desktop Pictures (at least for Tiger).

For starters, can you look there and tell us if there is anything in that folder?

If there is not, do you have a recent backup that you can restore them from?

mac57 said:

Your desktop images are stored in /Macintosh HD/Library/Desktop Pictures (at least for Tiger).

For starters, can you look there and tell us if there is anything in that folder?

If there is not, do you have a recent backup that you can restore them from?

Click to expand...

Same in Leopard as well.

The folder is empty. I'm not sure what you mean by a recent backup.

that means if you had backed up your files (desktop images and all other important files), you would be able to retrieve them.

How is this done?

OK, lets back up. From the above, I am going to assume that the folder is empty (you have told us that), you have not done a backup recently and thus you are not able to restore the contents. Lets try a few other things.

First, perhaps you could tell us a bit about your Mac and what you have been doing ton it recently? You don't list any of the specs for your Mac. What type is it, what OS are you running, have you upgraded to Leopard recently perhaps? Have you installed some new software recently? Have you tried any disk cleanup routines recently? Added any new hardware recently?

Now, lets see if perhaps the desktop files are still on your disk, but perhaps not where they should be. I am going to make the rash assumption that you are running Tiger (statistically likely at any rate!). Lets see if we can find on of Tiger's standard desktop files. Picking one not quite at random, Tiger comes with one called:

Aqua Blue.jpg

This is the default Tiger desktop wallpaper. Try entering that filename into Spotlight and see if it finds it. If so, where? Perhaps some filename or disk corruption has occurred?

Secondly, it is likely prudent to check for disk corruption. Fire up Disk Utility (your Applications/Utilities folder) and run the Verify Disk routine. If that passess OK, run the Repair Permissions routine. Reboot and see if you now have the desktop images back.

Please report back to us what happens at each step.

It's Mac Desktop 5,1 which I've had about a year. It runs Tiger 10.4.11. Processor 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. The desktop background problem happened after I downloaded Deskshade a couple of days ago. I have since moved into the trash which is now empty. I haven't run any disk clean up routines lately. No new hardware.

The Aqua Blue.jpg was not found.

I ran the Verify Disk routine & this is what it said in red:
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair

I did not run the Repair Permissions routine

mac57 said:

OK, lets back up. From the above, I am going to assume that the folder is empty (you have told us that), you have not done a backup recently and thus you are not able to restore the contents. Lets try a few other things.

First, perhaps you could tell us a bit about your Mac and what you have been doing ton it recently? You don't list any of the specs for your Mac. What type is it, what OS are you running, have you upgraded to Leopard recently perhaps? Have you installed some new software recently? Have you tried any disk cleanup routines recently? Added any new hardware recently?

Now, lets see if perhaps the desktop files are still on your disk, but perhaps not where they should be. I am going to make the rash assumption that you are running Tiger (statistically likely at any rate!). Lets see if we can find on of Tiger's standard desktop files. Picking one not quite at random, Tiger comes with one called:

Aqua Blue.jpg

This is the default Tiger desktop wallpaper. Try entering that filename into Spotlight and see if it finds it. If so, where? Perhaps some filename or disk corruption has occurred?

Secondly, it is likely prudent to check for disk corruption. Fire up Disk Utility (your Applications/Utilities folder) and run the Verify Disk routine. If that passess OK, run the Repair Permissions routine. Reboot and see if you now have the desktop images back.

Please report back to us what happens at each step.

Click to expand...

I found Aqua Blue.jpg in the Apple Desktops Folder. Sorry.

Great, thanks. The pieces start to make sense. DeskShade messes with Desktops, allowing you to do all sorts of things with them. It likely cleared out the existing stuff so that it could manage it by itself. You have since deleted DeskShade, leaving you in your current quandary.

I am very pleased to hear that you have found the default desktop wallpaper. That means that DeskShade preserved the existing stuff as opposed to deleting it. I checked my Tiger install (same one, 10.4.11) and I don't have a folder called Apple Desktops. I would wager that DeskShade created this and dumped the original desktops in there to keep them, so that you could restore them later, perhaps through some form of uninstaller. I am not a user of DeskShade, so I am not sure of its uninstall approach.

Can you look in the Apple Desktops folder and see if all the other standard desktop backgrounds are there? There should be around 28 to 30 items there. If they are there, recovery from your problem should be as simple as moving them back to /Macintosh HD/Library/Desktop Pictures.

Because these are system files, you *may* not be able to just drag and drop, but do try this first. If you are not allowed to, you will need to use Terminal.app to do this job. To do that, issue this string of commands from the Terminal.app window:


That's it. Of course, you will need to replace the "pathname-of Apple Desktops folder" with the path name to that folder, wherever it is. And, after the "sudo cp" command, Terminal.app will prompt you for your administrator password, which you will have to enter.

That should do it. Your desktop backgrounds should now appear in the preference panel. Good luck!

They're back! Thank you very much!

Glad to have been able to help!

hey does any one know how to make the desktop backgrounds change faster that 5 seconds?