Why Does My Wallpaper Not Load up At Startup?

[Snort McDork]

When I boot this thing up in the morning, my wallpaper will not load up. I am a new Linux user still trying to figure this thing out. But I am perplexed that I get a black screen instead of a particular photo I programmed to be wallpaper. On 2 occasions it has loaded up at startup, but all other occasions it has not. Is there a setting I need to be aware of? I am using Linux Mint 19. Thank you. And I am thrilled I found this forum.

 

[Vrai]

Quick question: Do you mean the 'Log In' screen - where you type in your password - or the desktop screen - after you have logged in?

 

[Snort McDork]

After. I don't have a log in prompt. Goes straight to desktop.

 

[angusmcoz]

Do you have the photo located on your computer and if so have you changed it's location since you set it as your desktop? I ask this because if the path to the photo changes the desktop will not "see" it.

 

[Snort McDork]

Well, this is really weird. On 3 occasions, including this morning, it loaded up. No black desktop. So I'm guessing it see's the path, but not consistently. So I'm confused why it's inconsistent when I boot it up. Oh, the photo comes from a flash dr. Everything is backed up. I see the add button, but it's already added to the menu of background pics.

 

[Vrai]

the photo comes from a flash dr...... I see the add button, but it's already added to the menu of background pics.

Perhaps it is only a cached thumbnail showing in the menu of background pics.
Possibly the desktop is losing the path or link to the photo on the thumb drive whenever the machine is shutdown and/or the thumb drive is placed in another port.
Try copying the photo to /usr/share/backgrounds (in the Cinnamon desktop - XFCE and Mate should be similar).

 

[TechnoJunky]

It's most likely a load timing issue. Sometimes it loads the USB before it gets to the load the wallpaper and sometimes it loads the wallpaper before it loads the USB. Do as Vrai suggests and move the wallpaper to your hard drive, which will already be loaded when you start booting up.

 

[Snort McDork]

Okay. Thanks for the suggestions. Your analysis makes sense. I try to keep things off the desktop for fear of losing them later, but in this case I will make a copy to a folder and use it from there. Thank you for your assistance and boot-up lesson.

 

[telliott]

I am having a similar issue on openSUSE Tumbleweed. running Plasma 6.04. I had never thought of the cache issue. I generally only use the wallpaper picker to quickly set the wallpaper when the system boots up with none set. When I pick new wallpaper, I usually use Digikam to select from my pics collection, then use its built-in wallpaper set tool. I need to try adding an image to the wallpaper picker first and see if it sticks between boots.

This is a laptop that is used on the go and at home connected to an external hub (external monitor and keyboard). It happens on the laptop monitor and the external monitor.

Edit: After a few reboots, a wallpaper manually added to the wallpaper picker from my local Pictures folder is not loading on random boots.

 

[truckerDave]

Edit: After a few reboots, a wallpaper manually added to the wallpaper picker from my local Pictures folder is not loading on random boots

I would suggest starting a new thread. As this one is fairly old and may not really be relevant to your particular issue.