PSA: Slideshow Screensavers May Break With Upgrade to Monterey

[mlsusa]

Slideshow screensavers stopped working on my 2020 iMac after upgrading it to Monterey. Instead of transitioning through photos I selected for the screensaver, it only shows a blank screen. I tried using different albums in the Photos library, created a fresh new Photos library and set that as the system library, exported photos to a local folder and tried using that, used a default source (Colors), and even reinstalled Monterey. None of it worked.

Apple Support, if they are to be believed, claims this is a known issue that is being actively worked on and there should be a fix in a future release. Hopefully this is the case as slideshow screensavers is actually one of the key features I use my iMac for. It sits in a common area at home and when idle, the photos shown by the slideshow are one of the elements that brighten the room.

For reference, it's a 27" 2020 iMac with an i7 CPU and the 5500 XT GPU.

Also note that my 2015 15" MacBook Pro did not have an issue after it was upgraded to Monterey. It had been running smoothly in pretty much all my use cases which led me to believe I was safe to upgrade the iMac. Big mistake.

Bottom line, this may or may not affect you, as it affected one of my Macs but not the other. Unfortunately, it affected the Mac that had my master Photos Library. But, beware that this may happen to you.

 

[lwilliams]

Thanks for this info. I thought it was only my MBP that had this issue. I love the Ken Burns screensaver and it, and others, no longer work.

 

[mlsusa]

This may be a fixed by the upcoming 12.1 release:

This release also includes bug fixes for your Mac:

• Desktop and Screen Saver may appear blank after selecting photos from the Photos library

I say "may" because I didn't have an issue with the desktop wallpaper, just the screensaver. We shall see.

Full article: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/10/apple-seeds-macos-monterey-12-1-rc-2/

 

[Macsan]

Just updated to 12.1 and my screensaver is working perfectly—classic mode with my photos!

 

[mlsusa]

I created a VM with 12.1 to do a test on my Mac and screensavers still do not work. Maybe it's due to the VM and it'd work fine on the Mac itself, but I don't want to take that chance. Finding out it didn't work on Monterey and having to roll the Mac back to Big Sur was a painful multi-day ordeal.

 

[lwilliams]

I am on 12.1 and the only thing working is solid colors, a slide show from my photo album and the vey old factal stuff. All my good stuff is listed as a selection, but nothing shows but a blank screen.

 

[mlsusa]

I am on 12.1 and the only thing working is solid colors, a slide show from my photo album and the vey old factal stuff. All my good stuff is listed as a selection, but nothing shows but a blank screen.

This isn't promising. When you say your good stuff, is that something in Photos or is it a directory in your Mac?

 

[lwilliams]

It was lots of Landscapes and Nature, Hi-Res, photos in the Macintosh HD\Library\User Pictures folder.

Everything gone. The only left in there are folders: Animals, Flowers, fun, Instruments, Nature, and Sports. Each folder has 5 or 6 pictures in it.