Background changer issue

[Digger]

Am not quite sure EXACTLY what the problem may be. After selecting using a folder with both bmp and jpg files, non which are currupt (have figured that out), the desktop "turns black" after displaying say around 15 "slides". I have the timer set on 10 secs. If i go back into display/background, which stops the slideshow temporarily, it will display the current photo being used. If i double click that photo (that has a checkmark, rest do not), it will then pop back up and display on background.... but not until i run thru this proceedure....

so given the 10 sec transition... with my 15 photo display (give or take a few... would put the problem happening within 3 min, which is about right.... any ideas? anyone play with this feature? Used different timing scales to display? Also fyi, shuffle IS checked as well.

Also..... its not the same jpg/bmp when this happens, different one each time

 

[Digger]

hmmm... no feedback, not promising. For reference, the folder had over 100 jpg/bmp to shuffle from.... anyone test this by chance?

 

[garysgold]

Hello digger,

I changed my setting to match yours when I saw this thread about an hour ago. Got busy and forgot about it, sorry. All still working fine. Only difference is I have all jpg files and not a mix of jpg and bmp. Try removing the bmps and see if it works. If so then you could convert the bmps to jpgs as a work around. I don't know of any other solution. Maybe someone else has seen this. Maybe some feedback to MS.

Gary

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

I have the same problem with mine and so do a ton of others. I'm still waiting for a fix because I'd really like to use the slide-show background. I think I have 1 bmp in my pictures folder and over 1,000 jpg pictures, none of which are corrupt or have any problems. I'll delete the bmp tomorrow and see if that fixes anything but I don't think that affects it at all. After a couple minutes the background goes black for me also. I have not found a way to get the slideshow to continue endlessly and I have not seen any fix yet either, hopefully someone can find something..

 

[Digger]

ahhh, good.... well, sorta ... lol

Thanks for the reply and test gary, will try and suss it out. Not sure if its bmp, or maybe, possibly character limit? few long filenames i have, but its not those that are the problem. alot of bmp's tho, probly 50/50 bmp/jpg

thanks 4 the response also global.... tis same problem...

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

I moved the bmp out of the library, got the black screen after about 4 pictures...


Changing the resolution didn't fix mine either, someone posted that their background would come back when they change the resolution, didn't work for me.

EDIT******

I noticed it kept stopping on a picture that was named _IMG_0976. I renamed all the pictures that started with an _underscore_ and even renamed one that started with a hyphen (name was -1.jpg ). I then changed the slide show from 10 seconds to 30 seconds, and so far it has been working for nearly an hour!

EDIT2******
It didn't last forever though, a little over 2 hours and my background was black again. It stopped on a different picture this time, one with a long filename and a couple % signs in it, so now I'm editing the filenames down and we'll see if that works.

EDIT3******
I renamed a ton of pictures, removed all the underscores I could find (But with over 1000 jpegs I'm sure there's more) and shortened all the filenames of the pictures that had long names. I tried to make the names just simply numbers and letters, but I know theres still many more with hyphens and other symbols, although not many. So far it's been going for over 2 hours, we'll see if it stays up for good this time, if not, we'll see where it stops and go from there.

EDIT4******
That didn't take long, went to a black screen about 2 minutes after posting. I checked the picture it stopped on and the picture had 2 % symbols in the filename. It appears the the windows 7 slide-show is very picky when it comes to file names. I'm gonna keep starting it up and running it through until it will accept all my pictures and continue forever. Hopefully this will help some of you that are also simply trying to get the slideshow to work and STAY working.

EDIT5******
It is now stopping on pictures that simply have letters and numbers in the filename. I do not know what is wrong with the slide-show. It seemed to work much better and last much longer when set to 30 seconds instead of 10, but no matter what it seems to go to a b lack screen eventually.

 

[rerice]

I had a like problem. The screen would go black after a full reboot.

It has stopped now. The only change I am sure of is that I am using a
different theme.

Good Luck
Richard

 

[garysgold]

Try running the sfc command. Info here if needed. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Note: If you have done any hacks, watermark, getting windows mail working or whatever, you will probably lose them.

Gary

 

[Digger]

yea, i have done that as well Gary... still having same problems

although lately havent had time to even be on pc in the recent week. will take a longer harder look at it this week.

Thanks global! great job on atleast trying to widdle it down, i will do the same this week and maybe some good can come out of this. hopefully we arent the only two having this problem

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

Its definitely not just us, it just bugs me because I have found a fix or workaround for every problem I've ran into with 7 except for this one. I was really excited when I first found out about the background slideshow feature, but completely disappointed when I realized I couldn't get it to work correctly. There's gotta be a fix somehow, somewhere...

I had heard it was buggy, and that MS was going to fix it.. so we should be able to fix it too..

 

[chev65]

I have no problems running the backgrounds that Windows 7 came with but I haven't tried to run any other types of back grounds.

 

[garysgold]

I'm not having any problems. I haven't yet run any MS backgrounds in this build. I usually have it set on every 10 mins. Sometimes 5, no faster than that.

Gary

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

How many pictures do you have?

I want mine to change every 10 seconds, but the faster the pictures change, the faster it goes to a black background.

10 seconds = In a couple minutes it will be at a solid black background
30 seconds = In a couple hours it will be at a solid black background

I'm sure the other intervals have the same effect, just need to have it running nonstop for a lot longer to have it happen. ALL of my pictures show up fine in the Photos Slideshow Screensaver and in the Pictures Slideshow Gadget and in the Windows Photo Viewer, so I don't know why the Slideshow Background is having so much trouble.

 

[Digger]

just to note, i know global you are on x64, as i am on x86... both affected

only new info to offer is that i dont believe its the % sign, as i dont have ANY named included.... i do have "-","_", and "."

Longest filename is 58 characters, few with spaces in filename, although those dont seem to be the ones affected, its soooo random here as to which file it is. Therefore i would go out on a limb and say its not our files. I have around 40% bmp and 60% jpg, just fyi and have used just jpg or just bmp with the same issue, non specific to a particular file.

Am starting to think you may be onto something with the "timer" and time elapsed. Am starting to believe that, or its the number of files gone thru... then maybe somekind of buffer/cache problem is the issue.?

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

Am starting to think you may be onto something with the "timer".

That would actually make the most sense. When the timer is set to 10 seconds, I'm lucky if I see more than 50 pictures. When the timer is set to 30 seconds, I usually see around 200+ pictures.

 

[Marc Winter]

Same thing with me: I've compiled some themes using the backgrounds I have on my system. Always the same: black backdrop after some changes.

All of the backgrounds work fine when selected individually.

Marc

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

Just avoid the 10 second option. The background slideshow will last much longer when set to 30 seconds. I'm going through all my 1100+ pictures and organizing them for low res and hi-res, and then hi-res splits into fill and fit, for the background slideshow options. The feature WORKS but there are definitely bugs in it.

 

[AGlobalThreatsK]

It seems to be very picky with pictures. Even if the name is simply alphanumeric it may still reject the picture. I have also now created a DoesntWork folder and am putting certain images in their that the background slideshow refuses to display. I already tried opening them and saving them as new .jpg images from paint, but the background slideshow still refused to show them, and would stop when it reached them. I'm a little more than halfway through my pictures, probably about 400 more to go. So far it's looking pretty good, starting to see light at the end of the tunnel .

 

[DocBrown]

What are your power options set to in control panel > power options?

Monitor Turn off display *** never ?

I am running about 200 backgrounds I downloaded from InterFaceLift.

Nice pics there.

 

[Digger]

What are your power options set to in control panel > power options?

Monitor Turn off display *** never ?

I am running about 200 backgrounds I downloaded from InterFaceLift.

Nice pics there.

at what interval?