Wallpaper Engine is a steam application that helps you to set up dual-screen wallpapers on your Windows computer. The main attractive feature of the wallpaper engine is that it can set up animated wallpapers with audio support as well. Although configuring this engine can be a little tricky and users often face numerous issues. One issue which is very common in Wallpaper Engine not working on the second monitor where you configure both monitors, but wallpaper only loads on one.
In most cases, this is the issue of different resolutions of the computer screen, but it can also arise due to non-compatible drivers or outdated software. Here in this guide, we will take a look at some troubleshooting methods which will help you to fix this issue.
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Fix: Wallpaper Engine Not Working on the Second monitor
In order to make the Wallpaper engine work, you need to make sure both the monitors are connexion and configured within the app. If you have different resolutions on the monitor, then you have configured them accordingly. This guide will only help you if you have configured both the monitors on the Wallpaper Engine setup.
Disable Contrast Themes
Windows comes with special visual aid features which you can enable on disable on your discrete likings. With high contrast mode, Windows does not load any wallpaper and puts a blank color background instead. In this mode, any wallpaper-related application will not work at all.
Open Windows settings and navigate to Accessibility > Contrast themes.
Here make sure no themes are selected.
Disable Antivirus
Antivirus can sometimes disable important folder directories which are responsible to run the wallpaper engine. You can either disable your antivirus completely or configure it to exclude the wallpaper_engine installation directory to make sure the wallpaper is running smooth.
Disable other modification software
Windows comes with a plethora of modification and configuration software, and the good thing a=is as these work with each other, without any issues. But Wallpaper Engine has been reported to cause issues when other modification software is installed.
The list includes Fences, Rainmeter, Flux, etc. If these apps are installed on your PC, then the Wallpaper engine will not work partially or entirely. So it’s a good idea to disable or uninstall them if you don’t need them.
Disable WMP option
WMP stands for Windows Media Player which is the reason why you can easily play video files on your computer. Although the Wallpaper engine has its own video encoder and decoder so it doesn’t need WMP support. But WMP still causes numerous issues, so disabling it will help to fix the problem.
In the Windows search bar – search for “Turn Windows features On or Off”.
Navigate to Media Features > Disable Windows Media Player
Save the settings and reboot your PC. Now Wallpaper Engine will start working on your second monitor
GPU scaling disabled
GPU scaling helps to scale wallpapers or any graphics to your computer screen. If this is not disabled, a few features from the Wallpaper engine will not work correctly.
GPU scaling is a feature provided by your GPU manufacturer (AMD, NVIDIA, INTEL etc), so you need to make sure your GPU drivers are updated.
Install Wallpaper Engine Patch
Since its initial launch, Wallpaper Engine has launched many software updates and patches to fix issues related to wallpaper not working on the second monitor. It is quite possible that you’re running an old build and need to update the software.
You can check the latest updates and patches available from Wallpaper Engine here.
Check Playback configuration
With recent updates on Wallpaper Engine, users can now configure different playback options to make sure the wallpaper is running fine.
Change settings from Paused to Keep running for all options. This will instruct the second monitor to display wallpaper.
Disable video audio output in the options
This method will help you if your wallpaper is having some audio features as well. Wallpaper Engine is configured to run wallpaper audio when there is no audio output coming from the game you are playing.
If these settings are not configured correctly, you might face “wallpaper not coming” when the game is running issue. You may fix it easily in Wallpaper Engine configuration.
Here make sure the wallpaper playback is set to “Keep running” for all applications.
Change Wallpaper media format
The error comes from Windows media foundation and it will only affect videos except for WEBm. So you can convert your wallpaper video file to WEBm format and it will run efficiently. You may use any free online video converter for this task.
Conclusion
These are all the methods to fix Wallpaper Engine not working on the second monitor issue. Please make sure to update the software and Windows OS to the latest version to avoid any issues. I’m sure the above methods will help you to tackle this situation. Before following the above methods, do make sure that the video wallpapers you download are compatible with your system.