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 (8b617bd, 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

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pythonptprofiler:30281270
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vscoreces:30445986
vscod805cf:30301675
binariesv615:30325510
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pythonvs932:30410667
vsclangdf:30486550
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dsvsc012cf:30540253
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pythonfmttext:30731395
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pythongtdpath:30769146
i26e3531:30792625
pythonnosmt12:30797651
pythonidxptcf:30805731
pythonnoceb:30805159
synctok:30821570
dsvsc013:30795093
dsvsc014:30804076
diffeditorv1:30821571
dsvsc015:30829745

[VSCodeTriageBot]

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!

[hogsmead]

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 👍