Most issues come from one of four causes: macOS cached the previous wallpaper, a pause rule is doing exactly what you asked, another wallpaper app is competing for the same layer, or a macOS update changed wallpaper behaviour. Work through the matching section below.
Wallpaper does not appear
- Check the MacWall menu bar item — if it shows Paused, resume.
- Confirm no pause rule is active: unplugged with pause-on-battery on, or a full screen app in front.
- Re-apply the wallpaper from MacWall. This overwrites a stale macOS wallpaper asset.
- Quit and relaunch MacWall.
- Log out and back in, which forces macOS to reload wallpaper assets.
Playback is frozen on one frame
A frozen frame is what a paused wallpaper looks like — that is deliberate, not a crash. Resume from the menu bar. If it re-pauses immediately, a rule is firing: battery, high CPU, or Low Power Mode. Review them in Performance and battery.
Downloads fail or stall
- Catalog videos are served over HTTPS from a CDN. A VPN, corporate proxy, or content filter can block them — try with it off.
- Confirm free disk space. 4K loops are large and a failed write looks like a stalled download.
- Retry from the wallpaper's detail view; MacWall resumes rather than restarting from zero.
Black desktop after a macOS update
- Update MacWall first — /download always serves the current build, and wallpaper behaviour changes between macOS releases.
- Set a plain static wallpaper in System Settings, then re-apply your MacWall wallpaper. This clears a broken asset.
- If the desktop stays black, restart. macOS occasionally needs one restart after a wallpaper subsystem change.
Lock Screen motion missing
Lock Screen playback needs Pro and a supported macOS version. The full checklist is in Live Lock Screen and Screen Saver.
Still stuck
Email support@macwall.app with your macOS version, Mac model, MacWall version, and what you already tried. The Discord community is often faster for setup questions.