Ubuntu Mate 16.10 Upgrade: Themes Broken

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello All,

Before running the upgrade I noticed that there were issues with themes so I reset to what I thought was the default theme in 16.04 and upgraded. Now I’m on 16.10 (yay!) none of the themes I have, including the default, work properly. Window borders odd colours, text that cannot be changed, menus that don’t display properly (the function is ok if I guess where things are), pop up menus are unreadable and so on.

My guess is that I need to load up GT3 themes, so my question and issue is how can I manually get rid of my old themes, get back to basics and load up (install) some compatible ones please? I know about gnome-look etc but how can i be sure that they are compatible?

This may seem a simple task, but I’m just someone who uses UM, I don’t often get into the configuration. I can do it and am happy to, just I forget how… google and searching this forum has not shed light so far.

Thanks in advance.
Andy

#2

Hi @andyp6,

have you down any custom work on any themes and have you tried all different themes?, have you installed any graphic card drivers and if so, for what GPU?.

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It might be a case of missing dependencies?, try the following terminal command (Ctrl + Alt + t) and do a restart then try playing a around with themes:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

#3

Hi WM thanks for the reply, I did check dependencies and actually did run that command, albeit separately, so I was pleased I hadn’t forgotten some things. You are correct I had a custom theme but I have tried to reset everything back to non custom, particularly with ambient-mate but there are just small things that are not right with all the themes standard or not, (text on “applications places system” is without spaces) , menus have no arrows or automatic pop ups of sub menus, menu backgrounds colours that I wasn’t expecting…things like that.

So my idea was to try to get rid of the customisations which may have crept in, how to reset back to a default state and I can go from there. if there is an easy way, let me know please.

That said I have almost got it where I want it, but spending far too long fiddling about with multiple settings of windows, mate tweak, theme customisations…just the panel colour to get right but I can live with it for now.

An upside is that the problem I had with libreoffice overtyping itself in cells has now gone away… :slight_smile:

Thanks
Andy

#4

Although one thing I've not solved is the text colour for the clock, clues?

#5

HI @andyp6,

did you install any GPU drivers?. :smiley:

#6

Hi WM, I wasn't able to reply, away for work all week. No, no additional GPU drivers. I believe the system is using the intel proprietary driver, output of sudo lshw and the software sources below. This was exactly the same as the previous version.

Screenshot at 2016-10-28 10-33-21.png1138×237 47.6 KB

Screenshot at 2016-10-28 10-34-42.png758×416 36.4 KB

If there is anything else to check, let me know.

Thanks

#7

Hi Andy,

take a look at your software settings and check your updates:

You can also run this terminal command (Ctrl + Alt + t) but check your settings first, it may help?:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -f

Let us know if it helps. :head_bandage: