Wallpaper turns black when original image is missing

Hi there.

The scenario is this: I set a custom wallpaper off my data partition that's encrypted by Bitlocker, I restart the laptop and of course the drive is then locked. Then, after a while my wallpaper completely disappears and the desktop turns black.

I done a test where I copied an image to the main drive, set it as the wallpaper, deleted it and sure enough the same thing happened. Conversely if I don't delete it the wallpaper stays as normal. What is going on with that? It's like Windows needs the original image to keep updating the desktop or whatever.

I have recently got a new laptop and when I realised this was happening I thought it could've been some kind of malware or some kind of software conflict so I took the time to reinstall Windows yet it's still happening. I can tell that it's going to turn black because when I go into settings the image of my wallpaper doesn't appear in the screen image at the top (Pic attached) and also when you mouse over desktop icons a black square appears around them (pic attached). But weirdly this doesn't seem to happen straight away, after I first log into Windows the wallpaper is there as normal and everythings fine, then it takes around 10~20 minutes before the wallpapers vanishes or sooner if the desktop is refreshed for any reason.



Can anybody recreate this? What on earth could cause this?

Edit:

Version 24H2 (Biuld 26100.4946)
Laptop: Elitebook 665 G11

aHumanError said:

done a test where I copied an image to the main drive, set it as the wallpaper, deleted it and sure enough the same thing happened. Conversely if I don't delete it the wallpaper stays as normal. What is going on with that? It's like Windows needs the original image to keep updating the desktop or whatever.

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I believe that is correct. Any image set as desktop wallpaper must remain in the same folder path that it was in when you made it your wallpaper unless you create a custom themepak using that image..

glasskuter said:

I believe that is correct. Any image set as desktop wallpaper must remain in the same folder path that it was in when you made it your wallpaper unless you create a custom themepak using that image..

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Surely not, I have never had this issue before. Additionally when I restart the computer after it turns black the wallpaper appears again after I log in so it does cache it.

Just copy your image file to an unencrypted folder, set it as your wallpaper and it should be good.

aHumanError said:

Additionally when I restart the computer after it turns black the wallpaper appears again after I log in so it does cache it.

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I have no idea how you have your system set up. Could well be because you are syncing the desktop folder to onedrive and your wallpaper image is in that folder. I can only state for certain that I have all my wallpaper images in a fixed folder located on my system drive which is not encrypted or connected to onedrive in any way and I have never encountered such a problem on 4 different computers.
Maybe someone else using the same criteria as you can test on their system.

Anything you want to view has to either exist to begin with or be accessible.

Always put your wallpaper pictures under C:\Users\USERNAME\Pictures.

I had the same issue.

After some research it seem this is "normal" behaviour as @glasskuter said. It's so weird because I don't remember having this issue, I'm not sure if it's some kind of Mandela effect or whatever; any image I set in the past seemed fine regardless if it was accessible or not. I'm not sure if it's some recent update but it just seems such bad design... I mean what if you're wallpaper is stored elsewhere. For example on the cloud, a NAS, or in my case an encrypted partition where it's not always accessible you just have to put up with it turning black? It's so dumb.

What makes this even more dumb is that Windows actually makes a copy of your wallpaper in the AppData folder. But it goes through some kind of conversion where it actually reduces the quality (although you can change this quality of this transcoded image with a tweak) of the image. I tried simply linking to this transcoded image directly in the registry but it didn't work; of course it's not that easy - I think it's because it doesn't actually assign a format to the file (missing extension) and you can't simply stick one on the end because this is the file Windows uses.

So in the end I ended up making a small program that applies a wallpaper for me; I can click and drag an image into where it copies it to the AppData location & replaces any existing transcoded image file, then updates the links in the registry to the image file (not the transcoded one), and lastly updates the desktop to apply the image.

It seems to work fine, it updates the wallpaper and stays put. Weirdly though it still shows black in settings but I'll continue to look into it, it maybe a link I missed in the registry or something. At least then if you change the wallpaper using the same app it just replaces the existing images.

This bothered me way too much. Windows is full of stupid things like this - like the one where if you have Windows Hello enabled it assumes you want your computer locked every time the screen times out - and you can't disable it!

aHumanError said:

like the one where if you have Windows Hello enabled it assumes you want your computer locked every time the screen times out - and you can't disable it!

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Sorry but this is incorrect as well but I've got to give it to you, you definitely have the right user name.
I use Windows Hello and never have to log back in.
This is accomplished by preventing the PC from going to sleep.

aHumanError said:

if you have Windows Hello enabled it assumes you want your computer locked every time the screen times out - and you can't disable it

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I use a pin and this works for me. Settings>accounts>signin options

Why not copying your wallpaper to "C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows" and lockscreen background to "C:\Windows\Web\Screen" ?

Sheikh said:

Why not copying your wallpaper to "C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows" and lockscreen background to "C:\Windows\Web\Screen" ?

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It works if you put the wallpaper in: Always put your wallpaper pictures under C:\Users\USERNAME\Pictures.

JAM83 said:

It works if you put the wallpaper in: Always put your wallpaper pictures under C:\Users\USERNAME\Pictures.

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Why?

Sheikh said:

Why?

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Because it works

I've also noticed this change in how Windows handles desktop wallpapers / backgrounds.
If I set an image as a desktop background, then delete or move the image I used, my desktop background turns black and flashes.

In the past, Windows used to keep a copy of the desktop background in its own folder. I think the path below is where they used to be stored.

%WinDir%\Web\Wallpaper

C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper

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It didn't previously matter whether the original image used to set as desktop background was still available. But now it does.