(CLOSED) Dark Theme Bug

With Dark Theme, I find that there is a "blacked out" autofill dropdown on webpages (e.g., at DropBox.com). In addition, on many screens (such as Software Center, etc.) black text shows only very faintly as light, light grey (e.g., looks like a blank screen, impossible to read, for instance, in Software Center where it says "Install only if you trust this source ... [Install]" . This problem does not occur with the Light Theme. Can the Dark Theme be fixed?

I have Zorin 8.1 Free Standard (downloaded April 11, 2014).

I'm using it on a 2004 HP Pavillion a630n box, dual booting with XP, 1.5 GB of memory, ATI card, Dell 20" Flatpanel monitor (around 2005). Everything works great: printing to Dell LaserJet (PS emulation), DropBox, DosEmu, some win programs in the HP_Pavillion partition open with Wine (but, as if for the first time, if not installed by Wine). Speed is comparable to XP running bare (fast) without startup services bloat, such as virus protection, iTunes update, etc., etc.

hi,

do a full system update per the update guide:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

The best terminal command (Ctrl + Alt + t) to use is the following because it will update any missing dependencies:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

Restart your PC after updating and let us know if this fixes the problem!.

The system update using the terminal command you suggested went without a hitch. I then rebooted. But nothing has changed. For instance, logging in to respond to this forum gives the "blacked out" dropdown auto-fill fields (using Chrome browser). And the Software Center install screen is blank.

I think I'll try changing the BIOS to use the onboard graphics, instead of the ATI card, to see if that changes anything.

Hi,

if it is an Nvidia onboard card look here, viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2490 make sure that you didn't install any ATI/AMD drivers though otherwise it might lead to a system crash!. (I am talking about you personally installing any drivers directly from AMD or using the "Additional Drivers Tool"!)

Run this command in recovery mode after starting in recovery mode, activate "Network" (a network cable is required!) then go to root and type all of the following:

Code:

sudo apt-get install update && sudo apt-get install dist-upgrade -f

Then restart with Ctrl + Alt + Del, don't click on "Resume".

Yes, the following worked. It took me awhile to figure out what you were asking me to do. Your assistance is absolutely first-rate! The graphics card is an ATI Sapphire (PCI). I did not manually install any drivers. The onboard graphics is Intel Graphics Media Accelerator with up to 128MB shared video memory. Nothing nVidia in this box.

Here's how I did what I thought you were saying to do:
1) Power down. Power on. At the boot menu, instead of "Zorin," select "Advanced," and then "Recovery" mode reboot for the current distribution. The recovery menu appears. Look for Network, and Root.
2) First, arrow down, and select and enter "Network" (a cable must be attached). Wait until the process completes and returns you to the recovery menu options.
3) Then, when the menu returns, arrow down, and select and enter "Root"; at the $ prompt enter the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install update && sudo apt-get install dist-upgrade - f
4) When the prompt returns, type "exit" and then when the recovery menu appears, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del (there may be some artifacts appearing on the screen).
5) Zorin then boots normally.
6) The Dark Theme no longer shows blacked out drop-down auto-fill boxes, and does show black text instead of faint grey text in windows and dialogues.

NOTE: I can't recall whether I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del at the $ prompt (as root) or after the recovery menu appeared, or both times.

Well done hunegar! 60 blue jewels for sorting it out and 60 to Wolfman for excellent advice as always! Will mark as [SOLVED]!

I'm very embarrassed to say that I FORGOT to switch back to the Dark Theme when I checked the drop-down and faint-grey text issue! The bug is not solved. No change. My apologies.
You're very responsive. I'm at a loss what to do next.

Hi,

open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + t) and paste the following command and then post the results back here please:

Code:

lspci

We need to know exactly what model graphics card you are using!. You will have something like the following and we are looking for info about VGA like the highlighted line below!:

wolfman@fred:~$ lspci
00:00.0 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 USB 1.1 Controller (rev a3)
00:02.1 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 USB 2.0 Controller (rev a3)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:07.0 Bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:08.0 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:08.1 IDE interface: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: NVIDIA Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 430] (rev a1)
02:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
wolfman@fred:~$


After you changed the graphics card around, did you do an update again after rebooting?:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

1) I did not change the graphics card. I just reset the bios to use onboard graphics (powered down, and plugged the VGA connector cable from my monitor in, before powering on); then I reset the bios to use the pci card (powered down, and plugged the DVI connector cable from my monitor in, before power on). Both scenarios produced the same result. I did not do any system updating.

2) Here's the result of the lspci command. Line 01:00.1 is the line you are interested in, I believe.

huneger@PC109A-ABA-A630N:~$ lspci | more
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82915G/P/GV/GL/PL/910GL Memory Controller Hub (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82915G/P/GV/GL/PL/910GL PCI Express Root Port (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FR (ICH6/ICH6R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FW (ICH6/ICH6W) SATA Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV710 [Radeon HD 4350/4550]
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV710/730 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4000 series]
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 80)
03:02.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
03:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 0a)
03:04.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! Game Port (rev 0a)
03:05.0 Communication controller: LSI Corporation V.92 56K WinModem (rev 03)

Hi,

you have almost the same graphics chip as mine: "01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV710 [Radeon HD 4350/4550]"

I only use the onboard opensource drivers for it as trying the others from ATI/AMD just simply don't work for me!.

You did do the updates again after swopping the graphics cards around didn't you?.

If you like dicing with death, you can take a look at the ATI/AMD thread but make sure you read it and the links contained therein very carefully before proceeding!:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6951

Other than that, all I can really really say is that your somewhat older graphics card (like mine on my laptop!) just simply won't play nice with certain themes and you need to find some themes that do play nice with your PC!.

Sorry I cannot really help you further!, maybe someone else has an idea or two that they wish to share!.

I did everything suggested, but there is no change. In the process I sent the error report to Zorin. Even though the Sapphire Radeon HD 100252HDMI 4550 512MB DDR3 HDMI / DVI /VGA PCI-Express Graphics Card (ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series, XP driver 8.681.0.0, PCI/VEN_1002&DEV_954F&SUBSYS_E106174B&REV_001\4&28711406) was among the "fully supported" cards on the ATI Website for the fglrx driver, at the end of the install, sudo aticonfig --initial (and the amd variant) both indicated "no supported adapters detected." I rebooted anyway, and got the screen telling me, "System running in low-graphics mode. Your screen, graphics card and input device settings could not be detected correctly. You'll need to configure these by yourself." The next screen, asking me if I wanted to try a low-graphics session, reconfigure, go to root prompt, etc., could not be accessed, because the message box was in graphics mode, and neither my keyboard nor my mouse (KeyTronic, Logitech) worked; I moused around trying to somehow "hit" the right spot to "enter," but didn't succeed. So I did a hard power-down, and restarted, with recovery mode, as you suggested, to reinstall the mesa drivers. I also did a full system update after re-entering Zorin. The Dark Theme still doesn't work. It's a nice theme, but not for me on this box.

Thanks for your terrific assistance. At this point, I'll work with the Light Theme, and try finding another machine on which to install Zorin, to see what happens.

Hi huneger,

can we mark this as closed; as it really isn't solved!.

Yes, let's mark it as closed. Thanks again for your help.

huneger wrote:With Dark Theme, I find that there is a "blacked out" autofill dropdown on webpages (e.g., at DropBox.com). In addition, on many screens (such as Software Center, etc.) black text shows only very faintly as light, light grey (e.g., looks like a blank screen, impossible to read, for instance, in Software Center where it says "Install only if you trust this source ... [Install]" . This problem does not occur with the Light Theme. Can the Dark Theme be fixed?

I have Zorin 8.1 Free Standard (downloaded April 11, 2014).

I'm using it on a 2004 HP Pavillion a630n box, dual booting with XP, 1.5 GB of memory, ATI card, Dell 20" Flatpanel monitor (around 2005). Everything works great: printing to Dell LaserJet (PS emulation), DropBox, DosEmu, some win programs in the HP_Pavillion partition open with Wine (but, as if for the first time, if not installed by Wine). Speed is comparable to XP running bare (fast) without startup services bloat, such as virus protection, iTunes update, etc., etc.

In answer to light-grey issue, I had similar problem. I solved it here:

Thanks. Changing the Gtk+ Theme in Tweak Tool to something other than Zorin Dark, while keeping Zorin Dark for Icon Theme and Current Theme, does clear up the problem on my "test pages." It also modifies a bit the look of apps such as LibreOffice. Something in the Zorin Dark Gtk+ Theme seems to be the problem. When returning to the Theme Changer, it shows my box as being "Light Theme," even though in Tweak Tool I am Zorin Dark for Current Theme and Icon Theme, but Ambiance for Gtk+ Theme.

To be honest, I think the issue came about with Gnome 3 as it has been reported elsewhere on the net about issues with Dark Themes - thanks and no thanks to the Gnome Project!