Doesn't show manually added wallpapers from "Picture Folders" category

[Hernando Torque]

Background images, that have been manually added to the 'Pictures Folder' category in gnome-control-center, don't get picked up by the Unity Greeter, because selecting one of those sets the image URI at 'org.gnome.desktop.background.picture-uri' to a copy of the file in '~/.cache/gnome-control-center/backgrounds', which is only user-readable.

However, image files, that reside directly in the '~/Pictures' folder, automatically show up in the 'Pictures Folder' category. Picking one of those entries sets the image URI to the file in '~/Pictures' → the Unity Greeter can read and use it.

To add some confusion: it's also possible to manually add images from '~/Pictures' to the 'Pictures Folder' category in gnome-control-center, and you will end up having the image show up twice: one pointing to the file in '~/Pictures' (will be used by the Unity Greeter), the other one pointing to the copy in '~/.cache/gnome-control-center/backgrounds' (won't be used by the Unity Greeter).

So, there _is_ an inconsistency to fix.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, not exposing private files on the login screen is a design decision not a bug, not sure what's the correct solution is there or if that's a bug at all...

[Sam_ (and-sam)]

Ah, as I understand it's a compromise of 844081, a single user can do whatever he or she prefers, on multiuser systems an admin may add user preferred images to standard directory on request.

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

Sebastien, some wallpaper entries in the 'Picture Folder' (System Settings → User Interface) set the 'picture-uri' key to 'file:///home/<user>/Pictures/<wallpaper_filename>', which is readable and will be used by unity-greeter.

So either that shouldn't happen, or the other wallpapers should work too.

[Sam_ (and-sam)]

Workaround via dconf com.canonical.unity-greeter background accepts custom path.