PET PEEVE: macOS "forgets" Wallpaper pictures sometimes?

[James Steele]

I think this may only happen on multiple monitor setups, but I'm not sure. I'm on Sonoma 14.1.1 these days, but this seems to be a long running, but very minor, annoyance. Every so often, when I boot up my Mac first thing for the day, It has "forgotten" the desktop wallpaper for one or more monitors and I have to reset it. It usually switches to the one I might have had on that monitor prior, for example. But I've noticed this over the years. Not a big thing, but a thing nonetheless.

[Guitar Gaz]

A few people advised me a while back to put the Mac to Sleep rather than turn off - that would help that problem - apparently it is better for the mac - I do it now but not sure if it is helpful or not.

[James Steele]

A few people advised me a while back to put the Mac to Sleep rather than turn off - that would help that problem - apparently it is better for the mac - I do it now but not sure if it is helpful or not.

Any and all suggestions are useful. I'm sort of from the school of never sleeping the Mac. Holdover from early DAW days I suppose, as I've heard sleep can introduce other issues. The wallpaper thing is a minor inconvenience, but I was just curious as to whether other users have encountered this. Thanks!

[mothra]

You actually shut your Mac down every day? It's been decades since I've done that. These things stay running 24/7 and only reboot/shut down when an install forces it.. Nowadays with two M2 Mac Mini's in the house, we actually had a -$58 electric bill this month.

Haven't seen my wallpaper disappear yet at home or on the M1 MBP I use at work running Sonoma and that one is shut down every time someone is finished with it.

[mikehalloran]

On my iMac Pro, I could count on that happening when rebooting after a Safe Boot or booting into Recovery. Sometimes, I had to reboot twice to get my wallpaper back.

I was having multiple monitor problems with my new M2 Studio. It didn't remember which screen was the center. Also, though my Studio Display would go to sleep as it should, the LGs would not. My LG 4ks were connected via DisplayPort to USB-C cables on my iMac Pro. Switching to 4K@60Hz HDMI cables (one HDMI–HDMI; the other HDMI–USB-C) solved most of the problems including those two. Apple Engineering has no clue as to why but I am hoping that Apple Support now has this in the database since I had to demonstrate this in person in Cupertino (thank goodness the Studio fits in a shoulder bag) before anyone would believe me.

What's left?
Sometimes the Left monitor that is connected to the HDMI port (HDMI–HDMI cable) will be distorted on waking but a reboot takes care of that. Other times, the L and R screens will swap places — again, rebooting fixes this.

You can't tell an Apple Silicon Mac never to go to sleep directly but you can indirectly and allow certain services to run in the background. The monitors, however, can be controlled. All this is done through settings on six different screens. Fun, huh?

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[James Steele]

You actually shut your Mac down every day? It's been decades since I've done that. These things stay running 24/7 and only reboot/shut down when an install forces it.. Nowadays with two M2 Mac Mini's in the house, we actually had a -$58 electric bill this month.

Yes I do. Total weirdo, right? Apparently a lot of people do. If these days I only get to be in the studio 3-4 hours per day, seems kinda silly to me to let it run 24/7.... idling for 20 hours per day.

[James Steele]

You can't tell an Apple Silicon Mac never to go to sleep directly but you can indirectly and allow certain services to run in the background. The monitors, however, can be controlled. All this is done through settings on five different screens. Fun, huh?

For whatever reason I don't even have the "Prevent Automatic Sleeping..." option.

[mikehalloran]

You can't tell an Apple Silicon Mac never to go to sleep directly but you can indirectly and allow certain services to run in the background. The monitors, however, can be controlled. All this is done through settings on five different screens. Fun, huh?

For whatever reason I don't even have the "Prevent Automatic Sleeping..." option.

That's accessed through the Advanced button from Displays which is why I circled it. It's not available through Energy Saver as one would expect.

I forgot to include Lock Screen as one of the control panels that affects this. I spent days with Apple Support on the phone before guessing that my big issue was DisplayPort vs HDMI and going to Cupertino to show them my guess was right. Ok, the mothership campus is a three mile drive...

Since this board allows only three uploads, I've edited my previous post so that I can display all six screen shots.

[James Steele]

You can't tell an Apple Silicon Mac never to go to sleep directly but you can indirectly and allow certain services to run in the background. The monitors, however, can be controlled. All this is done through settings on five different screens. Fun, huh?

For whatever reason I don't even have the "Prevent Automatic Sleeping..." option.

That's accessed through the Advanced button from Displays which is why I circled it. It's not available through Energy Saver as one would expect.

Yes, and you did a good job circling it. So much so that I used the “Advanced” button and the pane that came up did not include that setting. I’m a little slow sometimes, but I can see a circled “Advanced” button.

[James Steele]

It might have been that option was missing because my primary monitor which is connected to the HDMI port was currently selected. My other monitors are connected via TB3 to HDMI adapters.

[James Steele]

I'm home now. Just checked. Doesn't actually matter if any of my monitors are selected. I don't have that option in the "Advanced" settings:

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[mikehalloran]

The reason I showed the screens is so that you could match my settings and make that button appear. I don’t know if it will affect anything you are doing or not.

[James Steele]

The reason I showed the screens is so that you could match my settings and make that button appear. I don’t know if it will affect anything you are doing or not.

I appreciate that. Maybe it's because I'm on 14.1.1 or something else unique to my system, but I cannot get the "Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off" to appear.

[mothra]

You actually shut your Mac down every day? It's been decades since I've done that. These things stay running 24/7 and only reboot/shut down when an install forces it.. Nowadays with two M2 Mac Mini's in the house, we actually had a -$58 electric bill this month.

Yes I do. Total weirdo, right? Apparently a lot of people do. If these days I only get to be in the studio 3-4 hours per day, seems kinda silly to me to let it run 24/7.... idling for 20 hours per day.

LOL ok now in that case I can see shutting it down when you're done.

One oddity with the displays I have seen, and I think this happened in Ventura too.. When I work from home, I hook my Surface up to my monitors USB-C input, switch over for 8-9 hours, etc.. When I switch back to the Mac on the DisplayPort, my hard drive icons are all out of whack and all over the desktop (Mac is connected via USB-C to DP cable). Nothing else moves, just the drive icons. Never happened on my Intel Mini, and when I was using that, I was actually working from home a few days a week so I switched back and forth all the time. With the M2 Pro Mini, happens every time I switch inputs.