Unity greeter background not changing for users automatically after upgrade

Question

I have recently upgraded from 11.10 to 12.04. Normal upgrade, no new installation. In 11.10 I was using Simple LightDM Manager tool to set a custom wallpaper on the login screen. This tool unfortunately doesn't seem to do anything since I have upgraded. I have also heard that 12.04 is suppose to have this feature (changing login wallpaper per different user) by default. I have searched in settings but unfortunately in vain.

So, to keep it short, could somebody direct me to the option(s) page where I can make the desired changes.

Solution 1

If I understand you correctly, you want the desktop background for the login screen to change depending on which user is highlighted.

Yes, it does do this by default (it sets it to the one the user uses). The caveat is that since you upgraded, it doesn't automatically set this for existing users.

Simply change the wallpaper for each user, then change it back to what you had before. This will update the login screen to show the correct wallpapers. I had to do this with network users.

Solution 2

Recently I ran into the same problem and discovered there are two key settings that need to be enabled for this to work.

1. Make sure your wallpaper is readable by lightdm.
2. Enable unity-greeter background drawing. Run the command gsettings set com.canonical.unity-greeter draw-user-backgrounds true.
3. Enable the background plugin from the accounts daemon. Run the command gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.background active true. (This will have the accounts-daemon process update the /var/lib/AccountsService/users/johndoe file with John Doe's wallpaper location.)

I had to update these commands a couple of times for my wallpaper to get written to the respective file and then unity-greeter started showing my background again :)

Solution 3

You can customize your login screen with Ubuntu Tweak.

Install Ubuntu Tweak:

• Hit Alt+Ctrl+T to open terminal and run following commands:

  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
  

How to Change Login Wallpaper?

• Once installed, Hit Super key (Windows key) to open Unity dash and search for "ubuntu tweak" and open it.
• Navigate to "Tweaks" tab, Under Startup click on "Login Settings"

• Click on "Unlock" button beside the search bar, Enter your root password to unlock settings. To change the login screen background click on thumbnail in the bottom and select your desired wallpaper. Make sure the selected wallpaper is in your home directory.

• To set your current wallpaper as your login screen background, Click on the button right beneath the thumbnail.

To Remove Ubuntu Tweak Run the following commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge ubuntu-tweak
sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:tualatrix/ppa

Comments

[bioShark]

solution from first link worked. I wonder if anything happens if I do what reverendj1 suggests, now that I forced the background to a fixed picture.

[bioShark]

this is actually a great tip. I will try this. It also makes some kind of sense.

[bioShark]

thanks for the tool idea, and the trouble of making the screenshot. I wanted to use a solution which doesn't imply an external tool.

[Bruno Pereira]

Workarounds are the best! +1 ;)

[rm-vanda]

After I did this, it actually broke my login screen background. Any idea how to fix that?

[Mendhak]

Your post is appreciated; this solved the problem for me. accounts daemon was unchecked and I don't know why. I see a bug but no reason

[TuKsn]

The first point "Make sure your wallpaper is readable by lightdm" was everything that i have to do. The picture should have at least file mod 644 so lightdm could read it. Thanks for this hint!