Menu bar color is white while environment is dark

[SergeyPodgornyy]

Type: Bug

I just opened VS Code on Monday and realized that menu bar is white, while whole system and VS Code are dark. I tried to apply styles manually in settings.json (https://code.visualstudio.com/api/references/theme-color#menu-bar-colors), but it simply does not affect anything. This can be related to my OS, because I am on Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS, but I use canonical Ambience color theme from previous versions.

VS Code version: Code 1.82.0 (8b617bd08fd9e3fc94d14adb8d358b56e3f72314, 2023-09-06T22:07:18.759Z) OS version: Linux x64 6.2.0-32-generic snap Modes:

System Info

|Item|Value| |---|---| |CPUs|12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H (20 x 549)| |GPU Status|2d_canvas: unavailable_software
canvas_oop_rasterization: disabled_off
direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok
gpu_compositing: disabled_software
multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on
opengl: disabled_off
rasterization: disabled_software
raw_draw: disabled_off_ok
video_decode: disabled_software
video_encode: disabled_software
vulkan: disabled_off
webgl: unavailable_software
webgl2: unavailable_software
webgpu: disabled_off| |Load (avg)|1, 1, 1| |Memory (System)|31.01GB (22.12GB free)| |Process Argv|--no-sandbox --force-user-env --unity-launch --crash-reporter-id b25d19e0-d005-4d98-bf54-010f97696fbb| |Screen Reader|no| |VM|0%| |DESKTOP_SESSION|ubuntu-xorg| |XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP|Unity| |XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP|ubuntu-xorg| |XDG_SESSION_TYPE|x11|

Extensions (14)

Extension|Author (truncated)|Version ---|---|--- go-outliner|766|0.1.21 gotemplate|cas|0.4.0 go|gol|0.39.1 go-nightly|gol|2023.8.1617 todo-tree|Gru|0.0.226 vscode-docker|ms-|1.26.0 vscode-kubernetes-tools|ms-|1.3.13 remote-containers|ms-|0.309.0 makefile-tools|ms-|0.7.0 go-doc|msy|1.0.1 color-highlight|nau|2.5.0 excalidraw-editor|pom|3.5.1 postman-for-vscode|Pos|0.8.0 vscode-yaml|red|1.14.0

A/B Experiments

``` vsliv368cf:30146710 vsreu685:30147344 python383:30185418 vspor879:30202332 vspor708:30202333 vspor363:30204092 vstes627:30244334 vslsvsres303:30308271 vserr242:30382549 pythontb:30283811 vsjup518:30340749 pythonptprofiler:30281270 vsdfh931cf:30280410 vshan820:30294714 vstes263:30335439 vscoreces:30445986 vscod805cf:30301675 binariesv615:30325510 bridge0708:30335490 bridge0723:30353136 vsaa593cf:30376535 pythonvs932:30410667 vsclangdf:30486550 c4g48928:30535728 dsvsc012cf:30540253 pynewext54:30695312 azure-dev_surveyone:30548225 vscccc:30803845 282f8724:30602487 89544117:30613380 showlangstatbar:30737416 962ge761:30831758 03d35959:30757346 pythonfmttext:30731395 fixshowwlkth:30771522 showindicator:30805244 pythongtdpath:30769146 i26e3531:30792625 pythonnosmt12:30797651 pythonidxptcf:30805731 pythonnoceb:30805159 synctok:30821570 dsvsc013:30795093 dsvsc014:30804076 diffeditorv1:30821571 dsvsc015:30829745 ```

[vscodenpa]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code, the latest stable release is 1.82.1. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[ghost]

Same issue on the latest stable version (1.83.1) on Fedora.

[aeschli]

The colors of the native header bar and native menu are controlled by the operating system. There are tools that allow you to customize this. Search for Gnome tweaks.

Alternative you could switch VS Code to use the custom title bar: See window.menuBarVisibility

[SergeyPodgornyy]

@aeschli problem did not exist before updating VS Code, so that was changes in VS Code release that affected menu bar background color.

Also, window.menuBarVisibility does not adjust background color of menu bar, it only changes the visibility.

[SergeyPodgornyy]

@aeschli how can I re-open the issue, as it was not solved, you simply suggested non-related to problem things.

Gnome tweak also not an option, as other colors are absolutely fine, only this ugly menu bar in VS Code.

[aeschli]

Sorry I meant "window.titleBarStyle": If you choose native (the default) the window bar and menu bar are rendered by the OS. I tried various, random older versions of VS Code (1.73, 1.78, 1.81, 1.82), the menu bar always looks the same. I'm testing on Ubuntu 22.04, Gnome 42.9

[SergeyPodgornyy]

Thanks for pointing me out to window.titleBarStyle setting. I had native before and that caused an issue for me. I don't know why, maybe Gnome settings changed some coloring patterns for me. But switching to custom allowed me to make it dark again :+1: