Variety Wallpaper Changer

[Deadlyhydra]

Hi, I am currently scratching my head with Zorin 17.1 Core and Variety wallpaper changer and wondered if anyone could help.

I have installed Variety Wallpaper changer but for some reason it does not seem to change my desktop background despite the app running in the background.

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

[zenzen]

Hi, and welcome!

There's no mention in the project's website about whether it supports Wayland or Xorg, but I found an issue reported that only occurred in Wayland.

I'd suggest trying to switch between Wayland (the default) and Xorg to see if it makes any difference. To do that, you need to logout of your account and select it from the little wheel icon at the lower left. Read this post for a bit more detail:

Gjs pop-up?

The Firefox flatpak package allows access to the Downloads folder by default, so that shouldn't be a problem. The error message seems to imply that some form of authentication is needed. Using a Chromium-based browser might do the trick though, now that (sadly) many websites are starting to treat Firefox as a second class citizen. Here's a screenshot that shows how you can switch between Xorg and Wayland (Wayland is the option that simply says "Zorin Desktop"). Remember, you must login normal…

If this makes no difference, try running variety not on the background but directly on the command line by running the variety command. If there are any errors, they might appear there and give some clues.

[Deadlyhydra]

Hi, and thanks for coming back to me. I will try and see if variety works on X11 tomorrow, as I have not yet tried that .

I have tried launching variety via the CMD line and I still experience the same issue using Wayland.

[swarfendor437]

Another user reported issues while using a dark theme that it would not run.
I am running Plasma on my Zorin install, having removed all things Gnome.
Subsequently, no issues running Variety:

Wallpaper changers in Gnome wont work in dark mode. Its not your app its gnome!

Well, just installed Zorin 17.1 to replace GhostBSD ... and I got rid of Gnome/Zorin Desktop completely in favour of Plasma 5.24 and Enlightment 0.25! Wallch not working at all in Plasma, but no issues with Variety! [image]

[Deadlyhydra]

Hi zenzen, now logged into zorin using Xorg and Variety is still not changing wallpapers.

Running the app via terminal it outputs the following:

deadlyhydra@deadlyhydra-Vivobook-ASUSLaptop-K5504VA-S5504VA:~$ variety
WARNING: 2024-08-06 20:06:39,126: create_menu() 'Variety Slideshow is not installed. This is an optional extension adding pan-and-zoom slideshows to Variety: see https://github.com/peterlevi/variety-slideshow for details'
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/PIL/TiffImagePlugin.py:822: UserWarning: Corrupt EXIF data.  Expecting to read 4 bytes but only got 0. 
  warnings.warn(str(msg))
ERROR: 2024-08-06 20:06:39,331: download_one_from() 'Could not download wallpaper:'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/VarietyWindow.py", line 1157, in download_one_from
    file = downloader.download_one()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/plugins/downloaders/DefaultDownloader.py", line 141, in download_one
    items = self.fill_queue()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/FlickrDownloader.py", line 163, in fill_queue
    raise Exception("Flickr returned error message: " + resp["message"])
Exception: Flickr returned error message: Invalid API Key (Key has expired)
ERROR: 2024-08-06 20:06:40,688: fill_queue() 'Could not process an item from Unsplash'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/plugins/builtin/downloaders/UnsplashDownloader.py", line 109, in fill_queue
    "keywords": [cat["title"].lower().strip() for cat in item["categories"]],
KeyError: 'categories'
ERROR: 2024-08-06 20:06:40,688: download_one_from() 'Could not download wallpaper:'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/VarietyWindow.py", line 1157, in download_one_from
    file = downloader.download_one()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/plugins/downloaders/DefaultDownloader.py", line 141, in download_one
    items = self.fill_queue()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/plugins/builtin/downloaders/UnsplashDownloader.py", line 109, in fill_queue
    "keywords": [cat["title"].lower().strip() for cat in item["categories"]],
KeyError: 'categories'
ERROR: 2024-08-06 20:10:11,714: download_one_from() 'Could not download wallpaper:'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/VarietyWindow.py", line 1157, in download_one_from
    file = downloader.download_one()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/plugins/downloaders/DefaultDownloader.py", line 141, in download_one
    items = self.fill_queue()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/variety/FlickrDownloader.py", line 163, in fill_queue
    raise Exception("Flickr returned error message: " + resp["message"])
Exception: Flickr returned error message: Invalid API Key (Key has expired)

[Deadlyhydra]

Hey thanks for the advice. I have uninstalled variety and then re-installed it and now seems to be working on Xorg. The theme was already configured on light theme. Will try and see if following the reinstall variety works on wayland

[Deadlyhydra]

So logged in using Wayland and Variety seems to be working, so god knows what it was... But thanks for the advice from the both of you.