SUMMARY When using the same GIF as my wallpaper for both the desktop and the lockscreen, the animation will play on the desktop, but not on the lockscreen. The specific file doesn't seem to matter, you can test with this one: https://giphy.com/gifs/Windows-windows-clippy-microsoft-Ix6GpACnOfQ37CBAzq STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Set an animated GIF image (or a folder with animated GIF images) as your lockscreen wallpaper. 2. Lock the screen (e.g. with Meta+L). OBSERVED RESULT The GIF does not play. The lockscreen is otherwise responsive, and images change when using a slideshow. EXPECTED RESULT Animated GIFs play on the lockscreen just like they do on the desktop. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20240418 KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.80 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.2.0 Qt Version: 6.7.0 Kernel Version: 6.8.6-1-default (64-bit) Graphics Platform: Wayland ADDITIONAL INFORMATION On two random occasions in months, I've had GIFs play on the lockscreen! I don't know how to reproduce this success though :)
Have the same problem on Fedora 40 with KDE 6.1.2. Animated GIFs do not play on the lock screen if a window is maximized.
Oh thank you, that's a great find!
The cause is here: (“maximized window monitor”): https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/blob/d9d3c67b71bcc23635acb37534ed41eb09200518/wallpapers/image/imagepackage/contents/ui/mediacomponent/AnimatedImageComponent.qml#L38 It was likely intended to save resources by not animating wallpapers obscured by fullscreen windows, but it doesn't consider the lockscreen use case.