Cinnamon: Desktop background not displaying correctly

[Tracey-Lowndes]

When I open Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon in Virtualbox (the latest version), the desktop background doesn't display correctly - the colour is wrong. If I try to correct the mistake by rebooting Cinnamon, Virtualbox then crashes with an error message. If I try again, the same happens. Sometimes it takes several attempts before I can finally get the correct background colour.

Here are some screenshots:

The desktop background error:

The error message that appears when Virtualbox crashes:

I'm not sure whether this is a Cinnamon problem or a Virtualbox problem. I don't have Linux Mint installed on an actual computer, only in a virtual machine, so I can't check this problem on actual hardware.

[clefebvre]

Hi,

Make sure to upgrade all muffin packages to their latest version (3.2.2 at the moment).

And then, open a terminal and type:

gsettings set org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition fade-in

That should solve the color issue.

Can you tell us which version of Virtualbox this is?

[frasca]

I am using VirtualBox 5.1.12 (on OS X 10.11.6), and was experiencing this issue.

The above setting has resolved the problem for me.

[JosephMcc]

@frasca Are you using Mint18 as well?

[Tracey-Lowndes]

@clefebvre I'm using version 5.0.30 of Virtualbox.

[frasca]

@JosephMcc I am using Mint 18.1 (this issue happens out of the box with a clean install)

I have another Mint 18.0 VM that does not have this problem.

[DanielKoohmarey]

@clefebvre Recently installed Linux Mint 18.1 and had the same issue after the fresh install, your fix worked for me as well. (VirtualBox 5.1.18 / Windows 10)

[mcwinson]

@clefebvre Thanks! Your fix worked on Mint 18.1 (upgraded from 17.3) in VirtualBox 5.1.22 on a Windows 7 host.

[stillmattwest]

Didn't work for me. Got a "No such key 'background-transition' error. Mint 18.1 Cinnamon on a Windows 10 host.

EDIT: Yep, didn't have muffin 3.2.2. Works beautifully now. Thanks!

[JosephMcc]

This requires muffin3.2.2

[ronator]

This backgound-image-issue is still an issue on Linux Mint 18.3 - can we expect this to be "solved" (maybe set as default) with Linux Mint 19? (I had no vbox crashes btw).

[TecMunky]

As of this moment - this issue is NOT solved out of the box with Linux Mint 19.
But this fix worked for me as well.
Also, I was only getting the color shift - not a crash. Still annoying.

[TecMunky]

Also - this is a per user setting.
Is there any way to make this global?
If I wanted to back this out, or make other adjustments, where would I look for optional arguments.

I tried to install the muffin docs, but that didn't work.

[gercannon]

Thanks, the fix worked for me running Cinnamon on Ubuntu rather than Mint.

[dsagit]

Linux Mint 19.3 guest was seeing the same thing and the workaround from clefevbre fixed it

[pcanterino]

I was facing this problem in Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon in VirtualBox. clefebvre's workaround worked for me.

I would also suggest to re-open this issue as it is not fixed out of the box.

[Blinkenn]

gsettings set org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition fade-in

this worked for me on an LMDE 2 VM, running Virtualbox 5.2.18, that I upgraded to LMDE 3, with Win 10 host.

[BigSaucy]

'gsettings set org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition fade-in'

clefebvre's workaround worked for me on Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon in VirtualBox 5.2.18 hosted with MacOS 10.13.6

also worked in Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon in VirtualBox 5.2.20 hosted with Win10 Pro

[bartvanandel]

If you don't like the fade-in effect, you can also use:
gsettings set org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition none

To list all possible values, run:
gsettings range org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition

The offending value (and, on my machine, the only other one) seems to be blend.

[andrewpayne68]

Had zero issues with any of my Mint installs (Windows 10 1909 Host/VBox 6.0.14) until I installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) Cindy. Found this article and the command
gsettings set org.cinnamon.muffin background-transition fade-in
fixed this for me perfectly - many thanks @clefebvre !