Lock screen Spotlight stuck on same image

Hi all,

Firstly, I am fully aware that Spotlight is flaky at best, but I've never had a problem with it until recently. Since reformatting my PC and reinstalling Windows 11 Pro, I noticed that the image on the lock screen isn't changing routinely.

The image displayed is a Spotlight image (not the default blue 'Bloom' image), but it just never changes to anything else.

I've tried resetting and re-registering Spotlight as per the tutorial here multiple times at this point, but it seemingly always follows the same behaviour after that.

After resetting, it starts redownloading images into the %localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets folder almost immediately and either:

1. Sets itself to the image that ultimately gets stuck, or;
2. Sets itself to the Co-pilot 'Bloom' background, which then changes to the image that ultimately gets stuck within a day or so.

If I monitor the Assets folder over the next few days, it then seems to download a few more sets of backgrounds (the most I've ever seen is 4 sets of 2 images - one landscape, one portrait). It then proceeds to delete a lot of them (currently sat at 2 sets of 2 images - one of which is the image that is now stuck) and doesn't seem to download any more after that (it's been 3 days since the last deletion now).

I've also tried the usual dism and sfc commands, but they all come back clean.

Am I missing anything obvious here?

Many thanks!

Same here. Spotlight has been buggy for some time. It can work fine then break by not changing photos or reshowing an old photo. To me it seems worse after liking or disliking a photo.

Same here. I generally have given up. It's odd that MS won't fix something that is so visible.

Mine mainly changes at least once a week. If it doesn't, usually the monthly update would fix it for a bit, and then it goes back to old same.

Thank you for the replies, at least I'm not alone!

Since posting it has subsequently downloaded new sets of images into the assets folder, however they all get deleted within a few days. It just doesn't want to delete the one it's stuck on for some reason (downloaded when I last reset Spotlight on 30/07/2024).

And I thought I was doing something wrong....

I have the Lock Screen set to do a slideshow from a subfolder inside the Pictures folder, and it shows different images while it's locked, but as soon as you move the mouse or touch the keyboard to get ready to log in, it always goes back to the same picture. Has anyone come across a fix or workaround?