Screensaver Cannot Use Photos Library

[jasnw]

Just updated to 13.3 and immediately ran into a change (bug?) I'm not thrilled about. I've always had the screensaver set up to fetch images from my Photos library (iPhoto before that), and now there appears to be no option to do so. The only options are canned images from Apple or pulling images from a folder. Is there some new secret sauce to make this work?

 

[tozzo]

This happened once before recently. Any screen saver that shows photos from a folder, while showing them in the tiny preview, just shows a black screen when activated.

I just updated and now no photos show anymore when screen saver is activated.

 

[jasnw]

OK, so that just triggered a memory. I ran into this when I first transferred over to Ventura (13.2) in early Feb. Somehow I discovered that you needed to set up a "smart" album to hold the images for a screensaver. I did that, and it worked (last time). I checked Photos, and that smart album was no longer in existence. I set up another one and called in ScreenSaver and went back into System Preferences. Now "Photo Library ..." shows up in the selection of sources. I selected that, and up popped the attached image. The only one of these selections that worked was the one called "Screensave Selection" (which is NOT what I called that smart album).

So, since my Photos library did not have any of the albums shown in this list, just for fun I went back into Photos and delected the ScreenSaver smart albumn. The screen saver was still able to find the photos from this "Screensave Selection" choice. OK, so I closed everything down and rebooted. Still works with no smart album.

I have no idea what is going on here, but there is some undocumented (and buggy) interaction between Photos and the Ventura screen saver.

 

[tozzo]

that is a different problem.. but with the same result. I am choosing a folder, which we have always been able to do. Screen Saver is not limited to choosing a photos app library.

 

[RocketNutty]

I'm having the same problem as OP, except the second monitor is OK (has a picture from the folder). This worked perfectly before. BTW The folder is just a plain folder named "Images" (not in Photo Library).

UPDATE: After restart seems to be working. -- Not working! Maybe worked once.

 

[gatoloco]

I had the same problem and just fixed the issue.
Open Photos>go to Settings>General> click in "Use as System Photo Library".
voilá! now the Photo library appears as an option in System Settings>Screen Saver>Options

 

[jasnw]

I've noticed another odd, or at least unexpected, behavior when using a Photos library for your screensaver. The library I'm using has had many of the images edited (cropped and straightened, mostly), but the images that show up in the screensaver are the unedited originals. I don't know if this is a bug or a feature.

 

[Cafi69]

I had the same problem and just fixed the issue.
Open Photos>go to Settings>General> click in "Use as System Photo Library".
voilá! now the Photo library appears as an option in System Settings>Screen Saver>Options

I have just tried this but the option 'Use as System Library' is grayed out that is unclickable.

 

[gatoloco]

I have just tried this but the option 'Use as System Library' is grayed out that is unclickable.

I don't know if you already tried this, but try first rebuilding your photos Library (open it with option+command pressed)

 

[Cafi69]

Thank you. Tried that and still the same result.

 

[mejad]

Use System Library grayed out here, too. Did you ever get this fixed?

Thank you. Tried that and still the same result.

I see that it is greyed out of the system library is already set, but I'm still only seeing a subset of my photos, only those loaded since I set the screen saver to photos