Hello everyone, I just installed Zorin 16 on my HP Pavilion 15z-eh000 laptop with Ryzen 7 4700u but I have noticed that when placing the dynamic background, it does not change its state according to the time. After setting the Dark Mode to automatic, it happens that the wallpaper does change its state, but not to what it should, if it is the morning then it sets the night mode but it does not change to the dark mode. When it is night then place a midday one, it is quite uncontrolled. Any idea what I can do? My computer uses Dual Boot with Windows - GTranslate
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You can see what is wrong in the /usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain there is a .xml which tell which wallpaper to change.
Maybe @Aravisian can help you, I don't know anything.
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I have absolutely zero knowledge on this. I do not know what application is being used to change the wallpaper.
I usually recommend Variety wallpaper changer.
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The wallpaper changes because of this:
Output of:
$cd /usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-moutain←(Tells your terminal to go to/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-moutain)
$cat zorin-mountain-timed.xml←(List the Contents of a text file ~zorin-mountain-timed.xml)<background> <starttime> <year>2021</year> <month>3</month> <day>28</day> <hour>5</hour> <minute>0</minute> <second>0</second> </starttime> <static> <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Twilight.jpg</file> <duration>3600.0</duration> </static> <transition type="overlay"> <duration>3600.0</duration> <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Twilight.jpg</from> <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Sunrise.jpg</to> </transition> <static> <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Sunrise.jpg</file> <duration>3600.0</duration> </static> <transition type="overlay"> <duration>3600.0</duration> <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Sunrise.jpg</from> <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Day.jpg</to> </transition> <static> <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Day.jpg</file> <duration>28800.0</duration> </static> <transition type="overlay"> <duration>3600.0</duration> <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Day.jpg</from> <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Evening.jpg</to> </transition> <static> <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Evening.jpg</file> <duration>3600.0</duration> </static> <transition type="overlay"> <duration>3600.0</duration> <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Evening.jpg</from> <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Twilight.jpg</to> </transition> <static> <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Twilight.jpg</file> <duration>3600.0</duration> </static> <transition type="overlay"> <duration>7200.0</duration> <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Twilight.jpg</from> <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Night.jpg</to> </transition> <static> <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Night.jpg</file> <duration>18000.0</duration> </static> <transition type="overlay"> <duration>3600.0</duration> <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Night.jpg</from> <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/Twilight.jpg</to> </transition> </background>
If you pick the .xml file as your wallpaper in Gnome Tweaks or Gnome Settings, it will change your wallpaper according to the time. Basically, this file tells the computer to switch from (one of the five wallpapers) to (one of the five wallpapers) according to the time.
I personally don't understand what the .xml is trying to do (in detail). I also don't use it. I was wondering if @Aravisian understand what does it mean.
I have never heard of Variety Wallpaper Changer, will report back.
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Which application is used to perform this?
I have verified this, it is true, taking into account what the file shows, I understand that according to the start date, which is 2021/03/28 at 5:00 am, the wallpaper will change from one to another, counting X amount of seconds . I think it is not the best way. My problem may be due to the time zone, but I'm not sure. Anyway with my knowledge is programming I think that a Counter is not the best way. But I am not an OS developer 
I have changed the start time to today and I have added 30min more and it is working (Specifically 2021/10/13 at 5.30 am) I will continue testing, but I really think this should be improved.
Nothing, I think it's just like a config file. I don't really know. Maybe Zorin team can answer.
PARTIAL SOLUTION
Go to Desktop > Right Click > Change Background > Select someone static Wallpaper.
Now open the Terminal
$ cd ../../usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-mountain/ (Not Root)
Or
$ cd /usr/share/backgrounds/zorin-moutain (Root)
Open zorin-mountain-timed.xml with Nano.
$ sudo nano zorin-mountain-timed.xml
Now change the STARTTIME TAG DATA to current date and according to your time zone change the hour tag or minutes according to your sunrise. In my case:
<starttime>
<year>2021</year>
<month>10</month>
<day>13</day>
<hour>5</hour>
<minute>30</minute>
<second>0</second>
</starttime>
Ctrl + o to save changes.
Go to wallpaper config and apply the dynamic wallpaper again.
I repeat, It is not a final solution, I have tried and it worked but I cannot be sure of this, we have to wait for the great team behind Zorin OS
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As this thread is not in Feedback section, we may need to add @zorink @AZorin to alert the devs. I have also changed the title to include "Zorin 16".
Does anyone else have the same problem as the OP ? i.e. wallpapers not changing with time, to confirm the problem is not confined to the OP.
2 Likes
It seems perfect to me, I am not 100% with the forum rules yet. I am using Zorin 16 a lot almost to the point of wiping the Windows partition. 
Some may not have noticed this error and therefore no feedback. Before I knew it, the Wallpaper was always in Day mode.
It should be noted that my solution was temporary, the bug has happened again. From here I have no idea what to do. I have changed the time zone to GMT-0 and it works correctly but putting my time zone UTC-4 then it does not work. I think the Wallpaper change method should be corrected but this is left to the Devs.
GTranslate
What is the point of dynamic wallpaper ? I never used it.
I have few favorite wallpapers and changing them sometimes 
In your case it is like that, but there may be people who do like this type of effect. Personally, I like Zorin's default background and I think the idea that it changes according to time gives the OS a more PRO feel.
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Any news on this issue? I would like to have a dynamic background native to Zorin and it seems like a really nice feature to properly implement into Zorin. Thanks!
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