Xubuntu - black windows

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This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1010487

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

Can confirm this on Xubuntu 20120610 amd64 iso.

This appearance seems to affect Evolution message header views which are black on black. I can't find any appearance/preferences dailog in Evolution which causes or can change this. . Also using amd64 architecture, but installed Xubuntu over the default Unity Pangolin Ubuntu amd64 iso.

My problem with Evolution getting black message text on black background on Xubuntu was fixed by using settings->settings manager->appearance->style->bluebird in preference to thinice. All other applications seemed OK on thinice.

Possible the style choice might be causing other instances of this bug on Xubuntu.

I have the same bug on a live session on Quantal Beta 1.

However, when the desktop is loaded, clicking on the icon "Install Xubuntu 12.10", Ubiquity starts with grey background and readable text.

@copsewood: the visual issue in Evolution is entirely a different bug/issue. I was unable to fix it with the default Gtk3 engine, but please report a bug about it against shimmer-themes. Thanks!

I can confirm this on Xubuntu 12.10 Beta 1. The windows have a black background, but it also looks like the buttons and scrollbars are unstyled (see attachment). Are all the necessary theme engines loaded?

OK, some new light on this: first off, applying the main changes from this branch fixes the colors: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~xnox/ubiquity/quantal-proposed

Then, the widgets still don't look like they're rendered by Gtk3 (see attached screenshot). However – and this may sound a bit absurd – after installing the light-themes package Greybird is correctly rendered in Ubiquity.

I'm not talking about installing the light-themes package and setting Ambiance or Radiance, just plain "sudo apt-get install light-themes". After purging the light-themes package, we're back at what you can see in the screenshot. I hope someone can explain this to me...

The only thing I can think of now is that xfsettingsd somehow doesn't set the Gtk-theme correctly, as Gtk2 is also broken there (right-click the window-border to test Gtk2) and installing light-themes triggers some gconf switches...

Postscript: I can't consistently reproduce this. Sometimes Ambiance in fact sets itself as default theme for Ubiquity after installing light-themes.

Last update for now: I looked at the running processes while Ubiquity was on and found that "ps -A | grep xf" returned that xfsettingsd was marked as <defunct>.

So either the patch works and my testing borked the VBox or there's a problem with xfsettingsd not working as it should and therefore not providing the infos needed. (The icon-theme "elementary-xfce-dark" also isn't used in Ubiquity as far as I can see.)

I marked it as a duplicate because the color-issue is indeed fixed with the patch suggested in #744283.
If the theming/xfsettingsd problem persists, we should report a new bug.

As discussed on IRC yesterday with Simon, I think this is a different issue. The window on the screenshot doesn't look themed at all (it seems xfsettingsd is exiting for whatever reason).

This bug was fixed in the package xfce4-settings - 4.10.0-1ubuntu2

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xfce4-settings (4.10.0-1ubuntu2) quantal; urgency=low

  * debian/patches:
    - 02_fix-gtk3-theme-detection.patch: fix Gtk+3 theme detection in theme
      archives. lp: #1042247
    - 03_check-service-name.patch: check that NameOwnerChanged signals are
      really intended for xfsettingsd (should hopefully fix unthemed/black
      ubiquity windows). lp: #1010487
 -- Lionel Le Folgoc <email address hidden> Sun, 09 Sep 2012 11:09:01 +0200

Not sure if this is relevant to you guys, but I think that this is also causing me problems in 12.04.

I'm running a standalone compiz session and need to launch xfconfd first, separately - otherwise xfsettingsd kills itself when I attempt to start it up in the session script.

black background, unreadable text in ubiquity screen