Cannot permanently add wallpaper to 'Pictures Folder'

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Ryan, would you be interested to have a look? That's a side effect of your "don't copy local images" patch

Added two lines to the bug description from my duplicate bug to this one about the '-' button.

Seb: we discussed this on IRC a few weeks ago and I mentioned that this is a known and intended side effect.

Also note that the wallpaper is never really added to the pictures folder -- just to a cache directory that appears under "Pictures Folder" in the UI (which is a bit of a lie, imho).

It is my understanding that the existing behaviour (after the patch) is the correct behaviour and that if you set an image as your wallpaper then you should not delete it after.

Having a +/- button suggests that I can add and remove images, when I can't. I'm no design/usability guy, but that really sounds wrong to me.

Also, having an image group called "Pictures Folder" suggests, that it has anything to do with "~/Pictures" when it doesn't seem to.

Then there are those other questions like: Why aren't images in the root of "~/Pictures" copied to the "~/.cache" directory (therefore usable by lightdm)? Why does "~/.face" permanently show up in the "Pictures Folder"?

Ryan, we discussed similar issues but not exactly this one, with this bug the currently selected wallpaper is showing nowhere in gnome-control-center, what happens is:

- when you use the "add" button to select a wallpaper the ui change to "picture folder" with the wallpaper you picked listed and selected
- if you close the capplet and reopen it (or go back to all settings and then to appaerance) then image is listed in none of the categories

That's a bit of a confusing ui, maybe "picture folder" or "wallpaper" should list the image from the gsettings key if it's not already in the list to reflect the currently set wallpaper?

Or if you think it's wrong, at least selecting an image should not place you on the "picture folder" section with the image added for the "active session" only (i.e it's confusing that the ui shows you your image being added to that section but remove it if you reopen the ui)

Running 12.04 with the new Unity Greeter that shows your wallpaper on the login screen.

Something else to think about with all this is that if the "Pictures Folder" really means ~/Pictures then when you have an encrypted home directory, these pictures will not appear at the login screen. Likewise if adding a picture means adding a pointer to it under the .cache directory it will also not appear on the login screen.

Ideally, there should be a way, even if it requires sudo priviledges to add wallpapers to /usr/share/backgrounds. If you this is a separate issue, let me know and I'll open a new issue.

I don't get it.

So there isn't actually a folder which contains the pictures that are in the "Pictures Folder" from the drop down menu? In my case there is a picutre that seems to be stuck in the "Pictures Folder" forever: it is some old background that I had. No Idea how it got in the 'folder', and no idea how to remove it.

@Sep: there is one, it's the "Images" (or equivalent translation for your locale) directory in your user dir

Is this the same bug?

Here is what I am doing:

Right-click on desktop > select "Change Desktop Background" > under the "Look" tab select "Wallpapers" from the drop-down menu > click on the "+" button to add new wallpapers to the selection > browse to the wallpaper and click "open" ...

What happens then is that the "Wallpapers" section changes to the "Pictures Folder" section with the wallpaper being applied to the desktop background - However when I close the Appearance dialog and reopen it and go again to "Pictures Folder" my wallpaper is no longer there!!

So ...
1. The Wallpaper should be added to the "Wallpapers" section and not to the "Pictures Folder" .... and
2. The custom wallpaper should not disappear -- ever!

And, yes, this is a clean install not an upgrade ... and yes it's occurring on other Ubuntu 12.04 machines as well - all of the 3 I have here.

So, If I want to have several wallpapers to choose from gnome-control -center I have to put then in ~/pictures? and what happens If I have dozens? and like to put them in subfolders. Is there any way in which the UI shows to me images files within subfolders?
It seems to me tha there is no practical way to choose from my recent selections of wallpapers. Its not something critical but is something so simple and basic.

Previously I had been battling to insert pictures in the pictures folder and to keep them there for future use, now when I put a picture in there, I cannot remove it afterwards. Sounds weird, but that's the truth.

What makes it even more weird, is that the the picture that I would prefer to delete remains in the folder, but the others that I want to stay there disappear every time when I close the folder.

So there must be a right and a wrong way to add pictures to the pictures folder, and I must have inadvertently picked the right way for the pic that I do not want there and the wrong way for those that I want to stay there. Now the problem is that the wrong one won't go away and the right ones will not stay.

The South African Ubuntu community came up with the solution in quick time - simply find the images that you want to remove in your Home folder and delete them there, then add the ones that you want to remain in the desktop background pics folder to your Home folder. Presto! Problem solved.

I've got exactly the same thing; adding picture(s) in the drop down 'Pictures folder' item, only lasts as long as you have that screen open. If you close the window / backgrounds option and you right click on your desktop to reopen it; wallpapers appear ok.
When clicking on 'wallpapers' to get again the 'picture folder' option, everything is gone.

At my version of Precise it does point to the /home/username> folder though.. which is not correct either….

Is this expected to be solved, still, at some point in time? Or should I not expect any developments on this issue?

Incredible that after 4 years, Ubuntu can't properly handle custom desktop wallpapers - a feature that Windows had in 1994. Must be another one of Shuttleworth's tea party conspiracies...

It's 2016 and hitting the same issue in Ubuntu 16.04.

The Precise Pangolin has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release