Upgrading to OSX Leopard broke my Desktop Background settings. This might seem minor but it annoyed the hell out of me. All I wanted to do was add a simple directory of custom background images.
The entry for my custom backgrounds went missing from the Desktop & Screen Saver Preferences pane. When I tried to add the folder again I was presented with an error stating that it "already exists in the sources list". Further, my Preferences pane showed two "Aperture Projects" entries (one working, one not).
This all behaved just fine in Tiger, for the record.
After far too much time sifting through Google results, I discovered that this problem seemed to occur only for Leopard users who:
- Have Aperture installed
- Do not use/have never used iPhoto (and as a result do not have an iPhoto Library in their Pictures folder)
In the end I was able to fix both the custom directory and Aperture problems in one shot using the following method:
- Delete the file
(your user name)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist(make a copy if you're worried about maintaining your current settings) - Open iPhoto and create a new Library; there's no need to add anything to it -- the empty Library simply needs to exist in your Pictures folder
Voila! You should see an entry for "Aperture Projects" as well as "iPhoto Projects", and more importantly, adding custom picture folders will actually work.
10 comments for this entry ↓
1 Paul // Dec 15, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Bless you for posting this before I went off the deep end.
2 dennis // Dec 28, 2007 at 12:03 am
Paul: Glad I was able to help. It was driving me crazy, as well!
3 John // Jan 7, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Thank You Dennis!
4 Ian Smith // Jan 8, 2008 at 5:09 pm
You can also uncheck the "Share with iLife and iWork" in Aperture's preferences, for those like me and deleted iPhoto the second Aperture was installed. heh oops now it doesn't share with System Preferences either. Thanks for the help, this was getting me very annoyed.
5 David // Jan 17, 2008 at 11:46 am
Thanks so much for this, honestly it's always the little things that end up driving you mental...and this one had me pulling my hair out.
6 James // Jan 26, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I just encountered this after reformatting my drive for Leopard. Not a single Google hit for the entire written out error. I was getting pretty annoyed, but I discovered this, and you have saved the day. Thank you!
7 Graham // Mar 7, 2008 at 4:09 am
I have no hair and it nearly drove me to drink. Thankfully now, Dennis, I can enjoy the drink I was driven to by this very annoying problem. A little Apple� Hubris, I think, in this bug.
Thanks for your discovery. As a graphics/web/print publishing-type person, I need the right kind of background for the right job (to keep me calm).
8 Matthew // Mar 11, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Thanks for this. just one problem, do you know if there is a way to fix this that does not require iPhoto. I really don't want to have to install it on my Mac just to fix an error :)
thanks.
9 Jeremy // Apr 4, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Hurray! This was driving me crazy. Thanks a million Dennis!
10 pom // Apr 10, 2008 at 7:47 pm
For those who have uninstalled iPhoto, if you follow Ian's instructions on unchecking that option from Aperture prefernces, then delete the item that dennis recommended, it will work.
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