Win10 wallpaper slideshow... timer broken?

[Quillz]

I have a folder of about 2,000 various wallpapers that I have set to rotate randomly once per hour. This works... most of the time. Other times, the hour will pass and the wallpaper won't change. Sometimes on the hour after it will rotate, sometimes it will forcibly update if I log out and log back in or go into Settings and play with the background settings. I can also manually do "Next background" by right-clicking on the desktop, but why do I have to do any of these things?

 

Has this been happening to anyone else? Is the timer not rotating on the next nearest hour, but a literal hour after you've last logged onto the computer? It seems this feature might be broken.

[Anibal P]

Odds it's just displaying the same image twice in a row, especially is using random and it uses a "real" RNG, it could happen 

[Quillz]

28 minutes ago, Anibal P said:

Odds it's just displaying the same image twice in a row, especially is using random and it uses a "real" RNG, it could happen 

I suppose, I didn't consider that. But I'm literally using a folder with just over 2,000 wallpaper images, those are some crazy odds.

[Nashy]

Do you run more than one screen.  Because it will only change one at a time.

[Quillz]

1 minute ago, Nashy said:

Do you run more than one screen.  Because it will only change one at a time.

No, just a single external monitor plugged into my laptop (which has the lid closed).

[Nashy]

Is the system still detecting two screens?  I'm wondering if it's something to do with two, say it's set for 30 minute rotation, so you're only seeing it every 60 minutes.

When you right click to force the change, does it change it on the screen immediately every time you do it?

[Quillz]

1 hour ago, Nashy said:

When you right click to force the change, does it change it on the screen immediately every time you do it?

Yes, just tried it and it worked. Because I last logged onto my computer around 19:43 or so, and it didn't change at 20:00 like I would have expected.

 

1 hour ago, Nashy said:

 

Is the system still detecting two screens?

 

Nope, according to the Display settings, there is just one, my external monitor.

 

So either I'm getting (unlucky) and the same wallpaper is being randomly selected, or the timer doesn't seem to work properly, as it only works maybe half the time. (Or it's basing its 60-minute criteria on something else that I'm unaware of).

[TAZMINATOR]

Try to unplug that monitor and see if the slideshow works on the built-in monitor.

 

If it works, then you know the problem.  It may not be working very well on external monitor.

 

If not working, then it could be conflict in OS..  the factory reset may fix that problem.

[Quillz]

29 minutes ago, TAZMINATOR said:

It may not be working very well on external monitor.

Why would this be an issue? I'm using a generic video driver, as far as I know. Do those sometimes not work with the slideshow feature?

 

Anyway, at 21:00 the wallpaper cycled properly. Yet it didn't at 20:00, so it's almost like it's running on a 2-hour cycle. So maybe the laptop's display does have some hidden value somewhere within the OS...

[Nashy]

29 minutes ago, TAZMINATOR said:

Try to unplug that monitor and see if the slideshow works on the built-in monitor.

 

If it works, then you know the problem.  It may not be working very well on external monitor.

 

If not working, then it could be conflict in OS..  the factory reset may fix that problem.

It would be extremely surprising if the monitor had anything to do with it.

[Quillz]

30 minutes ago, TAZMINATOR said:

If not working, then it could be conflict in OS..  the factory reset may fix that problem.

Note I'm on a clean Win10 install, but this cycling issue occurred on my previous install, which was not clean (i.e. a Win7 upgrade with many Insider builds).

[TAZMINATOR]

2 minutes ago, Quillz said:

Why would this be an issue? I'm using a generic video driver, as far as I know. Do those sometimes not work with the slideshow feature?

Like I said, you try to factory reset it and see if it solves the problem.   The installation is not always perfect ...  the reset may be help... try that.  It could be conflict somewhere in OS...

 

Then that generic driver could be the problem..  Did you update the driver for that one? Go to their driver's website and see if they have new ones available.  Or see if you are willing to test the beta driver for your laptop and see if it works well.

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, Nashy said:

It would be extremely surprising if the monitor had anything to do with it.

You never know.

 

I had external monitor problem when I hooked it up and the text becomes blurry/bleeding...  I tried to change the settings  and nothing helps.  I tried another monitor.. problem solved.

[Quillz]

1 minute ago, TAZMINATOR said:

Did you update the driver for that one?

It's using whatever driver Win10 installed when doing the clean install. I haven't updated or touched it since.

[Nashy]

It's not going to be a driver or hardware issue.

[TAZMINATOR]

8 minutes ago, Quillz said:

It's using whatever driver Win10 installed when doing the clean install. I haven't updated or touched it since.

Well..  do the factory reset in the Recovery tab in the settings and see if it is solved. 

 

If not, then don't worry about the default slideshow and you may be interested in getting third party slideshow app from the app store.

[Quillz]

27 minutes ago, TAZMINATOR said:

Well..  do the factory reset in the Recovery tab in the settings and see if it is solved. 

 

If not, then don't worry about the default slideshow and you may be interested in getting third party slideshow app from the app store.

The last thing I want is more third-party software. This isn't a big deal, the slideshow does work, just doesn't seem to be on a schedule that I can comprehend. Either there's a glitch so that it only works on occasion, or, as nashy suggested, I have another "hidden" display somewhere, which would explain why the timer seems to be changing my wallpaper every second hour.

 

22:00 just passed, and the slideshow worked fine. Interesting, definitely running on some schedule different from mine...

Edited August 1, 2016 by Quillz

[The Evil Overlord]

I have had windows 8, and 8.1 on multiscreen setups, but the rotation for the wallpaper was 30 minutes

(haven't tried it on my win 10 laptop)

Try setting the timer to 30 minutes, see if it'll cycle through your images, at the very least it'll be less time to wait and see if it's got something to do with the system uptime

 

also is this on a desktop pc or laptop, as windows will pause cycling wallpapers whilst on low battery power,

 

edit

 

I just remembered something

the wallpapers cycle on the clock (depending on settings) either on the hour or half past the hour, depending on settings,

I'm guessing for the total system uptime for a wallpaper cycle you might have to factor in the time it was booted, (for instance if booted 7:50 pm, it may not cycle the wallpaper until 9pm, just because the system decided to let what wallpaper have more screen time)

Edited August 1, 2016 by The Evil Overlord

[Quillz]

2 minutes ago, The Evil Overlord said:

also is this on a desktop pc or laptop

A ThinkPad with the battery removed, plugged in. I basically use this as a desktop replacement. (And yes, I toggled the setting to have slideshow work on battery power, even though it's not using battery power).

[Nashy]

I've never timed mine.  I'll try to take more note of it tonight when I'm back on it.  I do notice that even with the random, if I've dumped a heap of new images in there, it takes a good day before I start seeing the new ones appear.

 

[Quillz]

2 minutes ago, Nashy said:

I've never timed mine.  I'll try to take more note of it tonight when I'm back on it.  I do notice that even with the random, if I've dumped a heap of new images in there, it takes a good day before I start seeing the new ones appear.

 

Perhaps, although the folder I'm using hasn't been updated in a long while.

 

Although something occurred to me... The last two hours or so, it's been working as intended. I remembered when I logged in, it was close to 8 PM. Perhaps if a full hour can't be completed, it skips over it? (i.e. you log in at 7:55 PM, it won't change the wallpaper until 9:00 PM). Seems a bit odd, but possible. That almost seems to be the case with my machine.

[Nashy]

I have mine set to change every minute.  So two minutes per screen.  It changes right on the minute as the clock changes.

[Daedroth]

I'm suspecting that it's due to the fact that the machine sees that there are two screens, even if you're only using the one. When you attempt to adjust the screen resolution, how many monitors appear? The screensaver mechanics may not be able to understand that you only use the external screen. So it would perform these actions (based on a 10-minute cycle):

 

 

Screen 1 (laptop monitor, despite being off and shut) - Picture 1

Screen 2 (external monitor) - Picture 2

 

After 10 minutes:

Screen 1 - Picture 3

Screen 2 - Picture 2

 

After another 10 minutes:

Screen 1 - Picture 3

Screen 2 - Picture 4

 

After another 10 minutes:

Screen 1 - Picture 5

Screen 2 - Picture 4

 

And so on, rotating one screen every 10 minutes.

 

[Quillz]

Okay, I think my laptop display does have some hidden properties somewhere within the OS.

 

Today I observed the following behavior twice...

 

Logged on at 11:xx and wallpaper changed upon login, wallpaper on external display changed at 12:00, did not change at 13:00

 

Logged on at 16:xx and wallpaper changed upon login, wallpaper on external display changed at 17:00, did not change at 18:00

 

So it would appear that indeed, even though screen saver and display properties aren't showing the laptop's built-in display anywhere, its wallpaper is being changed on the off-hours.

 

So I guess there's no bug, feature is working as intended, it's just not necessarily operating the way you might expect. Gonna marked this as solved.

 

Speaking of logging in, seems it won't change the wallpaper if you log back in within the hour (i.e. you log out at 17:23 and log back in at 17:42), but will if it's a new hour, which is what I would expect. And forcing a wallpaper change via right-clicking on the desktop doesn't alter the timer at all, it will still follow the "every other hour" formula. That's just there if you really want something new, I suppose.

[Quillz]

Hmm, not to jinx anything, but since installing the Anniversary Update (plus a CU bringing me to 14393.10), the wallpaper on my external monitor has flawlessly changed every hour without fail (except for when the monitor went to sleep, but the wallpaper changed upon waking it up). None of this "every other hour" stuff, so maybe there actually was an issue that the Anniversary Update fixed. Will keep monitoring (pun intended).

[Quillz]

I have found that if Windows Explorer is rebooted manually (such as via Task Manager), the timer will stop and the only way to get a new wallpaper is to force it manually. Seems only a reboot will turn the timer back on, not even a new hour does so... Not sure if this is considered a bug, might be by design.