Wallpaper not changing after selected

Kali Linux Forums Kali Linux Troubleshooting
1

What have you tried:
I have tried rebooting, switching to the last snapshot, changing it with the default root account, Kali, clearing previous session info, changing it as root, changing it via right-clicking the image and selecting ‘set as wallpaper’

What is the error:
Since I updated to the newest rolling release version, every time I try changing the desktop wallpaper it says it changed via highlighting my selected wallpaper picture but it wont show any change.

What device is this on:
Raspberry pi 4/400

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2

change it (and when it says its changed), log out then log back in, has it changed then?

3

I just tried this after you suggested it, it did not end up working.

4

I’m having the same issue. fresh build was fine. applied the upgrade/update & now the background is stuck on the blue blocks background. (pi4)

5

I have the same issue. Has anyone found a solution to this?

6

After installation, the wallpapers are located in Kali Linux /usr/share/backgrounds/kali-16x9/. You can delete it and try downloading it again from the website or somewhere else, or try installing other wallpapers.

1 Like
7

Has anyone found solution?

1 Like
8

is it fixed or not??? give me solution too my wallpaper is also stucked

9

I am having the same issue, the maze image just wont change and when i deleted it from the /usr/share/backgrounds/kali and rebooted the system the background is all black and i am stuck with the black background

2 Likes
10

Can you share a photo of the system so we can help you in more detail?

11

The reason why the background remains black is because you deleted the directory directly and it continues to download the wallpaper from the Kali Linux official site.

12

I did as you said delete the wallpaper from background but when I deleted the wallpaper named default this screen goes black as said someone in forum tho now what to do I can’t set wallpaper on screen it’s all black

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13

This seems to be an XFCE thing happened to me a few times over a few months. Hence why I recommend GNOME on Wayland.

There are a few different approaches you can try.

Option 1. [solved] XFCE4: can't change desktop background since recent update. / Applications & Desktop Environments / Arch Linux Forums

Option 2: Can't set desktop background - #20 by Slawtul - XFCE - EndeavourOS
What i did:

open terminal
run: xfdesktop --quit && xfdesktop --reload
ctrl-z
kill -9 $(jobs -ps)

and I am able to open other apps, terminals and close them clicking in ‘close’ button

Option 3: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-desktop-74/xfce-can't-change-background-image-4175737720/

I had the same issue with xfce4 in Debian 12.

I confirm your solution worked fine:

1 - I opened a terminal and executed ‘xfdesktop --reload’. That displayed the background in my desktop.
2 - Without closing that terminal I loged out.
3 - When logging out I checked "Save session for future logins).
4 - Login again and my new background was there.

Option 4: Kali-undercover Kali Undercover | Kali Linux Documentation

To get XFCE to behave but as I stated this happened to me over the course of a few months from time to time. Switched to GNOME running on Wayland. Works fine. No more issues. Hope this helps.

14

[FIXED] XFCE Black Wallpaper Bug on Kali (Raspberry Pi 4) After Deleting Default Wallpaper

If your Kali desktop turned completely black after deleting the default wallpaper, and you’re getting errors like:

Failed to load image file ‘(null)’: Error opening file /usr/share/backgrounds/kali-16x9/default: No such file or directory

It’s because XFCE was still trying to load the missing default wallpaper.

Real Fix (Tested & Working on Pi 4)

  1. Choose any image you want to use as wallpaper.

  2. Rename it exactly to: default (with no extension like .jpg)

  3. Move it to this folder:

sudo mv default /usr/share/backgrounds/kali-16x9/

  1. Then reboot your system:

reboot

Boom! The wallpaper is back, and the black screen issue is gone.

i got this idea while bathing hahahahah and it worked man I was so frustrated trying for 2hours but issue was so simple

15

i was just fix it haha while bathing so I was trying to change the wallpaper but not changing hours for struggle and i deleted the wallpaper named default and screen goes black i was soo frustrated again but while bathing i got a idea I choose my preferable wallpaper and named it same default and moved to /usr/share/backgrounds/kali-16x9 after reload xdesktop and reboot boom it’s worked

16

Great you fixed the deletion issue.

Original issue was the wallpaper not changing - before you deleted it.

Hence when it freezes again please try the suggestions to fix the freezing rather than deleting the background. But happy you got it working again.

17

Same steps for freeze wallpaper just delete default and change with new default