Arc and other themes on Ubuntu MATE 16.10 are partially broken, e.g. button's border

Support & Help Requests
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1

As title, I’ve been using Arc theme since Ubuntu MATE 16.04. After upgrading to 16.10 yesterday, I find that some elements of Arc theme is broken, namely the border of buttons, see this (buttons on toolbar at top left corners stick together) and this (buttons on the bottom right have no border, and even I choose Arc theme without changing icon theme etc, it’s shown as “Custom”).

I tried other themes, like Adapta and Numix, and got similar issues. I guess it’s because of the update of MATE desktop. But the question is how to solve it?

Thanks!

1 Like
2

Yes, I believe I’m having the same problem with ARC theme.
An additional issue is that the menu items lack spaces between words or icons, so the top panel reads “applicationsplacessystem” all as one word. I tried removing it & reinstalling from 16.10 universe repository still seeing the bug.
Pity as this is my all time Super favourite theme!

3

From where did you boys downloaded the theme . and wich version ? 'couse GTK 3.20 has problems with previous version themes . Mine is latest from git and it works . Trie to download latest version from git . The issue should be fixed . https://github.com/horst3180/arc-theme

4

Yeah, first - not a boy! But thanks for taking a look at my problem.
I had previously grabbed the deb from here: arc-theme_1475699688.5acba94_all.deb from
http://software.opensuse.org/download.html?project=home%3AHorst3180&package=arc-theme

However, after upgrade to 16.10 I also tried uninstalling as per git page instructions:

sudo rm -rf /usr/share/themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}
rm -rf ~/.local/share/themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}
rm -rf ~/.themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}

& reinstalling from the 16.10 universe repository:

sudo apt install arc-theme

Terminal tells me:

arc-theme is already the newest version (1475699688.5acba94).

Weirdly, even though it says the theme is installed, now when I just tried to use the theme again, Appearance preferences said "This theme will not look as intended because the required GTK+ theme 'Arc' is not installed" (see screenshot with far less pretty radiant theme instead)

no theme.png841×627 126 KB

5

Out of curiosity I tried downloading the .deb again and he Package intaller tells me the same version is installed:
What should I try next?

EDIT 1:
Gah! Just had an idea to install another reasonable light GTK3 theme in the mean time.
So I installed Gnome-cupertino from GnomeLook.
I've got the same problem with this theme.
My hunch is I'm rendering GTK3 themes incorrectly. But I have no idea how to address that problem (long time user of ubuntu, but my terminal skills are basically limited to copy & paste :wink: ). Any idea how to improve this?

Screenshot at 2016-10-17 08-30-37.png747×246 59.1 KB

EDIT 2: Dear @IvCHo - I hope you see this EDIT! As I'm a new user it's limiting me to 3 replies, and suggests I edit a previous post, so I hope you will see this!

I presume you are talking about the ARC theme ppa & packages?

I believe I have removed the ppa (found the Horst3180 one in my Other Software sources list and removed it). Ubuntu then did the "your package list is out of date", and rejigged itself.

I then opened a terminal and again typed in the rm -rf commands listed above.

I then entered the command:

git clone GitHub - horst3180/arc-theme: A flat theme with transparent elements --depth 1 && cd arc-theme

But I must be doing wrong with the second command:

./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr

Because it tells me:

bash: ./autogen.sh: No such file or directory

what do I need to add/change to make this command work? I'm guessing there's something unstated that I'm supposed change or add, but I'm in new territory with git!

Also, since ARC isn't the only theme that isn't working for me, (e.g. I also installed gnomecupertino & it showed the same problem) - is this likely to be a bigger problem?
I would have figured ARC was a pretty common and well known theme & I don't see a whole bunch of people with this problem, so it's probably me - but I really haven't poked around much with this system to mess it up

Edit 3 : I actually must have a different issue to the OP as oddly enough, the Adapta theme IS working for me. (I think it's still kinda ugly - I don't like dark themes, but not as bad as the default options!)

Edit 4: @elcste I'm sorry to be editing my prev. reply but I am a new user & blocked from making additional replies. Yeah looks fine for you, def. wrong for me. I'd add a screenshot but I've hit my newbie screenshot limit too! Do you have any suggestions as to what I can do about this? A number of my themes are coming up all wrong, & I've never come across this before (been using ubuntu for a number of years now but I really don't poke around with it, so I'm not sure why this has stuffed up now). Any suggestions?

6

As I see the repository you use is for Ubuntu 16.04 wich uses the GTK 3.18 . But the 16.10 release uses GTK 3.20 . I assume that the repository is halted the package for the GTK 3.18 version . I suggest you purge the entire ppa . (remove the packages in it and the repositories ) Then you should clone the git repository (if you don’t have git installed you can download a zip from github) . Move the theme folders to /usr/share/themes/ . Restart X session (ctrl+alt+backspace or relogin) . And change the theme to Arc to see if it is fixed

7

I agree that this looks like a GTK+ 3.18/3.20+ issue. I had similar issues with the default theme in the early versions of Ubuntu Mate Yakkety just after Ubuntu upgraded the Gtk+ version before the theme had caught up.

I was actually just testing Arc after reading that it is in the 16.10 archive This version looks fine in my virtual machine:

ubuntu-mate-yakkety-arc-darker.png1024×768 85.8 KB

8

Didn’t see the whole post until now .
First if you have the package do not remove arc theme folders in /usr/themes couse it will make problems with the package .
Now Gnome Curpentino from GnomeLook does not support Gtk 3.20 . The theme is not updated for a time .

for the installation from git :
hmmmm i don’t know why you have this error
try :
git clone https://github.com/horst3180/arc-theme --depth 1
open caja if you see the folder open it . right click on empty space and open terminal in the folder then do
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr

9

Just in case: the Arc theme has been added to the Ubuntu 16.10 repos (Universe). Have you tried installing it from there? (Remove older versions and PPAs first.)

EDIT: whoops, didn’t see that @elcste already mentioned it.

10

How annoying would it be for you to reinstall? That way you can try the version in the Ubuntu repositories without worrying about the leftover files from other versions you’ve installed.

As for the git command, it is basically downloading the theme folder and then (the cd part) moving into that folder. The && in between means only do the second part if the first finishes successfully. Maybe it isn’t, so you’re not moving into the folder? What is the results of pwd (print working directory, ie list current folder) and ls (list the contents of the current folder)?

11

Hi Thanks for your suggestions. My reply limit seems to have been lifted now :smiley:

  1. I'm hoping to avoid reinstalling this time. I have the same set up for my work computer in at the office (same programs, menus, theme etc.) & am upgrading this (my home desktop) to see if I can iron out any issues before upgrading at work. A reinstall will mean a full day of lost productivity at work (on our less than stellar wireless internet). My preference is to upgrade rather than reinstall, so I'll keep at it a little longer. Plus I'm learning so that's good I guess.

A) I tried the git clone command again and it confirmed that the folder is already there:

git clone GitHub - horst3180/arc-theme: A flat theme with transparent elements --depth 1fatal: destination path 'arc-theme' already exists and is not an empty directory.

B) There is a folder in my home directory called "arc-theme" When I open that folder there's a bunch of folders and files - similar to the files in the arc folders in my themes directory - but not the same - so I believe that's worked so far.
When I right click on an empty space in that folder, the terminal opens in

claire@claire-iMac:~/arc-theme$"

C) So good so far, but then when I paste in the command "./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr" it says:

./autogen.sh: 10: ./autogen.sh: autoreconf: not found

am I doing something wrong?

'3. pwd in that folder gives me: /home/claire/arc-theme
& ls gives me (text is as below, except that my terminal has more spaces between the individual files):

arc-theme-upgrade common extra m4 README.md
AUTHORS configure.ac gulpfile.js Makefile.am
autogen.sh COPYING HACKING.md package.json

'4. I don't know if this is important but after having installed from the universe repo as above I do currently have folders named Arc, Arc-Dark, Ark-Darker in my themes directory & after a reboot my appearances app is recognising that it's installed, but it still looks incorrect when chosen (have attached a little screenshot so you can see it's got the same issue that gnome-cupertino had - thanks for letting me know that theme is not updated, now I'm really hoping I can get ARC back!). - Would you like me to remove those folders then try B & C above again?

12

The autoreconf: not found errors is because you need to install autoconf. (The instructions say you also need automake, pkg-config and gtk-3-dev.)

Installing from the Ubuntu repo and building from git both install system-wide, so you should only have files in /usr/share/themes . But themes in your home, such as in ~/.themes or .local/share/themes, override system-wide themes, so I would definitely remove any Arc folders from theme folders in your home.

Thinking about this all once more, here’s what I would do:

  1. Switch to a working theme
  2. Fully remove the Ubuntu package:
    sudo apt purge arc-theme
  3. Remove any non-package versions, both system-wide and in your home:
    sudo rm -rf /usr/share/themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark} rm -rf ~/.local/share/themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark} rm -rf ~/.themes/{Arc,Arc-Darker,Arc-Dark}
  4. Make sure you’re up to date
    sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade
  5. Reboot for good measure
  6. Install from the Ubuntu repo:
    sudo apt install arc-theme
13

First, thank you, this has basically worked.
I removed the themes in the usual usr/share/themes & the hidden themes folder in my home directory.
followed your instructions & rebooted.
Interestingly when went to install with "sudo apt install arc-theme" it still found arc-theme-solid somewhere on my system.
I had another look in my themes but I couldn't find anything with arc in it. & I did a search in caja for that and it turned up nothing. But since it said it would remove it when arc-theme was installed I went ahead.
Now the theme is working correctly - I think.
I don't recall having the dark down the left side of Caja last time (could this be some complication from arc-theme-solid? Or maybe the theme is just like that now?), but I can follow that up on my own & the main thing is the spacing between menu items is back. See screenshot below. Thank you again!

Screenshot at 2016-10-18 12-40-09.png737×292 54.5 KB

14

Glad it worked for you.

The sidebars are dark for me too, and I think they’ve always been with Arc whenever I’ve tried it. (My screenshot above is the “Arc Darker” version, but the Caja sidebar is the same for me even with the light Arc version.) That’s one reason I never stick with with Arc personally :neutral_face:

15

Thanks Alexander,
Actually I've just confirmed it at my office desktop - No, Arc hasn't had any dark sidebar for me before. I only like light themes myself, so I'm not liking the dark at all - hopefully I can find some solution somewhere.
It's kind of funny - Perhaps it has actually been displaying incorrectly for me on both computers - but in my opinion it looks much nicer all light!
See screenshot I just took from office computer:

Screenshot from 2016-10-18 17-22-44.png490×516 44.1 KB

16

Strange the same is for me :

I took a look at code of the theme and this is for sidebar:
assistant .sidebar {
background-color: #ffffff;
border-top: 1px solid #dcdfe3; }

by the looks of it should be drawn with white color and grey for top.

17

The dark panel likely comes from Caja going from Gtk2 to Gtk3. AFAIK, the panel is dark too in other Gtk3 file managers like Nautilus or Nemo. The only thing that I’m not sure of for them is if it happens only for Arc-Dark and Arc-Darker or also with Arc (light). If there’s indeed an issue, either it’s a Caja bug that doesn’t use the right “style name” for its panel and it would have issues with other themes as well (in that case, it might be fixed in a future Mate version, though I’m not sure it would be a high priority), or it’s the Arc theme that doesn’t cover the specific way Caja is made (and in that case, it might take a while to fix also, as I don’t think the Arc designer does tests on Mate).

EDIT : from some captures I’ve found (e.g. Unity, Gnome 3) it looks like the panel is supposed to be dark (on Gtk3) even for the Arc (light) theme.

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I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be dark (and partly transparent).

19

Is your office machine running 16.04 or 16.10?

20

It’s still on 16.04 until I’m really confident all will be good with 16.10.
Before I upgrade the office computer, I think I will switch to one of the default themes I know will work before I upgrade. Perhaps that will avoid the issue.