Skype menus appear black, text invisible

[gdi2k]

When using the Dust theme from Karmic (from gnome-themes-ubuntu 0.5.1), Skype menus appear with black backgrounds and black text, making text illegible. Moving the mouse over menu items causes them to become visible.

Will attach screenshot attached below...

[sanmiguel9 (againsttcpa84)]

Hello,
I have exactly the same problem. Using the "Dust" theme results in invisible text in the Skype menus after a right-click. Moving the mouse makes the underlaying item readable. Changing the theme to "Dust Sand" results in perfectly readable menus (black text, gray background). Changing back to "Dust", surprisingly, gives black text in front of a very dark background in the Skype menus. This black text was definitely not there before I changed to the theme "Dust Sand". I will observe this behavior in the next days (after reboot, etc.)

[sanmiguel9 (againsttcpa84)]

Sorry, I am using
Skype 2.1
Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10
Asus EeePC 1000H

[Jorenko (jorenko)]

I had the same problem with Karmic UNR on a Dell Mini 9, with Skype 2.1. The workaround of changing briefly to Dust Sand and back to Dust worked for me as well.

[Gustavo Rubio (gustavo-42ideas)]

I also have this same problem with both skype 2.1 and Opera 10.10 build 4742

I think this is a QT4 problem or a problem with the software that hooks GTK theme to QT4 applications (qgtkstyle I think), the odd thing is that Opera 10.0 alpha build did not have this problem. I was looking for a QT4 linked version of opera and I found this older version on some FTP (10.0 alpha) then I finally found the newest version on some other mirror and Installed it and found this bug. Later I installed skype and it seems to have the same issue. If I go back and install this older version of opera the menus look just fine.

I'm attaching a screenshot for opera 10.10 build 4742 which has the same issue as Skype 2.1

Please let me know if you need anything else. Thanks in advance.

[Janis Jansons (janhouse)]

There is easy fix for this.
I went to skype forum and found solution.
Passing argument --disable-cleanlooks fixes the problem.
Edit shortcut/launch from or create skype alias: skype --disable-cleanlooks

[Janis Jansons (janhouse)]

I don't know if I could do this but I confirmed the bug.
And I don't think you can do anything because it is Skype (not Dust theme) problem.

[Gustavo Rubio (gustavo-42ideas)]

@Janhouse: It is not a "Skype bug" since it also happens on other QT4 linked applications, did you read my post? I've even uploaded a screenshot showing Opera 10 with this same issue so I'm pretty sure that, even when this might not be a theme issue itself neither is skype's.

This might be a bug in the QT component that uses GTK to draw the controls, I just can't remember the name, but that might be the one, or QT/GTK itself, who know, but I'm guessing that a workaround on the theme its easier to do than fixing it in GTK/QT4.

[Pedro Ribeiro (pmalvr)]

@ Gustavo Rubio

I have the same problem with the Dust theme in my clean Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic install, but only with Skype. For instance, I have more "Qt applications" installed and they all work well (ex. VirtualBox). Only the menus in skype are unreadable.

[Abdullah NZ (abdullah-nz)]

If the Dust theme is re-applied with Skype running the Skype menu text turns black, like it should be, and is thus readable. However closing and re-launching Skype causes the menus to return to being invisible.

Does this yield any clues to somebody more knowledgeable than me?

[Gustavo Rubio (gustavo-42ideas)]

@Pedro: Correct me if I'm wrong, but VirtualBox is not a QT4 application but a GTK+ application so that bug won't affect VirtualBox.

@Abdullah: While it is true that re-applying the theme changes the menu text color it does not fix it since the text should appear as white, not black, you can see that the gnome menu text is white or gray, but it is not black.

I still don't know what the root of the problem is, would have to dig further.

[Laurens Bosscher (laurens-laurensbosscher)]

Confirmed with Opera 10.10 QT4

[gdi2k (gdi2k)]

In the latest Skype Beta there is now an option which fixes this under "General" called "Choose style". If you select GTK+, the issue goes away.

New Skype announcement here (with download link):
http://share.skype.com/sites/linux/2010/01/flowers_become_screens.html

[David Tombs (dgtombs)]

Indeed, it doesn't appear to be a problem with Dust but instead with how Skype was overriding theme settings. Setting Invalid.

[Juan Ramón Caballero (juacado)]

Hello.
I tried to solve this problem (in Skype) as #6 said but this didn't work for me.
I tried as #13 said and worked fine, I think you have to select other than Cleanlooks.

[Ross McManus (ross-mpbioscience)]

I was having the same problem so uninstalled Skype and reinstalled the most recent version from the skype web site. I had to re-boot but then the option appeared as stated in #13 and now it works fine. Thank you for your help.

[komputes (komputes)]

Upstream bug reports can be found here:
https://jira.skype.com/browse/SCL-222
https://jira.skype.com/browse/SCL-584

[komputes (komputes)]

gdi2k is correct in comment #13

Workaround: Go to Options > General > Choose Style > GTK+

Would be nice if this was done automatically depending on the environment you run it in.