System Preference window not functioning correctly

[Glenmac]

When I open my system preferences and go to the desktop/screen saver icon, click on desktop/desktop pictures-it shows 4 pics across and about a1/3 of the 5th pic across the row. There is no scroll bar and I cannot click and drag the window to a larger size to reveal the last desktop pic. In other words I cannot use the pics in the last row. Also it seems that there are many pics I use to have in the desktop folder that are no longer there..Is this something that has been found in the OS 11 and/or the updates. Is there a fix....and where might all the other pics I had in my folders have gone?
/Users/glenmccleary/Desktop/Screen Shot 2021-07-25 at 9.49.50 AM.png--Tried to drag and drop a pic of the desktop systems pref window..but don't think it worked......Thank you.

 

[TonyAguila]

Does the Desktop & Screen Saver window show a column of folders on the left sidebar. Maybe the selected folder has only five images so there will be no scroll bar in the preview pane. In my case, “Desktop Pictures” (default from macOS) show several groups and I’m able to scroll up and down. But when I select “Art,” which contains seven items, scrolling is not possible.

Maybe your sources for desktop images were knocked off, somehow, but you should be able to restore them. Just click on tthe “+” button and select the folder containing your images. Your “Desktop Pictures” folders installed with macOS are located in (1) /System/Library, (2) /Library, and (3) /Users/[you]/Library.

Usually it’s the one in /System/Library that contains the default desktop pictures from your current version of macOS.

 

[Glenmac]

Hi Tony, thanks for answering. The window to the R containing the actual pics shows 4 1/2 pics. I can't find a way to expose the entire 5th pic in it. I took a screen shot of the open app as you did above, but it won't attach....get a message saying the file is too large to attach....don't know what that is all about.

 

[TonyAguila]

Do you have the sidebar open showing your picture folders? I you can see more than one folder, select another and see if you have more than eight pictures (which will produce a third row for you). I think you will be able to scroll now.

If you want to attach a screen grab here, you must reduce the size. Preview can do that for you. I had to reduce my screen shots to about 100 kb to be able to post them here.

 

[Glenmac]

Thanks again sir....

As you can see here, there is only part of a pic to the R side and there is no scroll bar. The only way I can scroll down thru the pics is to use the mouse touch feature...otherwise I am not sure how I could move thru the individual pics, and I cannot move horizontally at all, even with the mouse touch feature.

 

[TonyAguila]

The only thing I can think of at this point is that there’s something amiss with your system. What version of macOS are you running? In the past, whenever I experienced unruly and illogical behavior with the system such as this, I usually resorted to reinstalling the newest version of the combo updater of macOS.

Sadly, there is no combo update so far for Big Sur. Catalina has 10.15.7 combo as the latest, although security updates have been issued since so you might not be able to run the combo update if you have already installed the newer security updates. But it may be worth a try anyway. I routinely resorted to this process in the past, before Big Sur and Monterey.

There are the less drastic steps of resetting the SMC, zapping the parameter RAM, and rebooting into Safe Mode. Try them first if you haven’t already.

A reinstallation from recovery should be possible. Just make sure you have Time Machine backup(s). Disk cloners (e.g. SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner) may not be able to flawlessly clone the 2-partition schemes of Catalina and Big Sur.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Try going into System Preferences... > General and enable Show scroll bars: Always. Then go back to the Desktops and you should see a scroll bar.

C

 

[Glenmac]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the answers. I had already checked on the show scroll bars and it was on. What I did was run Clean My Mac X and did a deep clean. When I rechecked it, it seems to be ok now.....oops, I spoke too soon....just checked Last night it was back to normal but this morning it is back to the above pic. Will try to run the app again and see what happens.