135638 - Installed theme doesn't get used after intall when checking 'Use this theme'

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core Graveyard :: Skinability, defect)

Description

[ajbu]

Mozilla 2002040403 on Windows XP.

When downloading and installing a theme with the 'Use this theme' option 
checked, the theme is not used after installing or restarting Mozilla.
(If this can't be quickfixed the 'Use this theme' option should probably be 
disabled)

Steps to reproduce:
1) Go to http://xulplanet.com/downloads/view.cgi?category=skins1.0&view=all
2) Select a theme and click 'Install Now'
3) check 'Use this theme' (default) and click OK
4) Wait for the 'Success' message and click OK.
-> Expected: Theme is applied, or a message that Mozilla must be restarted to 
apply theme
-> Actual result: Nothing happens. Theme is installed but not selected as 
current.
5) Restart Mozilla. installed theme is not selected as current theme.

Comment 1

[André Dahlqvist]

I've seen this happen, and I cannot find a dupe of it anywhere.

->NEW

Comment 2

[ratman]

ditto using moz1rc1 on winme.

ideally, the "use this theme" option should just be hacked out for moz1.0,
especially since theme switching doesn't occur until restart now.  since "use
this theme" doesn't even do a skin switch on restart, adding the current warning
message would be equally meaningless.

suggest "regression" keyword, and if someone can put up a patch that takes out
"use this theme", it could ideally make 1.1, at the very least.

Comment 3

[André Dahlqvist]

*** Bug 143636 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Bill Mason]

*** Bug 141611 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Alfred Kayser]

The 'use this theme' feature should really be removed, until:
A. 'live-theme-switching' is really fixed
B. problems with faulty installed themes because of this feature are fixed.

To zoom in to point B:
I have seen multiple times, that when installing a new theme (which uses its own
bindings, such as for scrollbars), and when this checkmark is on, the theme
installation fails, not just like in point A, but also leaves a messed up chrome
situation, even after restarts. The problem is either in chrome.rdf or in XUL.msf. 
Deleting XUL.msf and then restart mozilla sometimes fixed the problem, and
sometines the complete 'chrome' directory had to be deleted, to get a working
Mozilla again.

Instead of this feature, it is may be better to open the 'theme preference' page
after succesfull installation (triggered by the 'use this theme' checkmark).

Comment 6

[Ger Teunis]

Why doesn't any report this bug anymore?
It's still there, if I install a new theme it doesn't switch to it.
Even when I select it manually without restart it doesn't paint right.

Comment 7

[石庭豐 (Seak, Teng-Fong)]

This bug isn't fixed for years.  Is that because the component isn't correct? 
The current component is Skinability.  But there's also another component called
Themes.  Should this bug be assigned to that component instead?

OTOH, not quite related to this bug but I asked it just in case:
I've noticed that when a theme is selected and after I close all Mozilla windows
(be that browser or mailer or whatever), the Quick Launch icon goes away too. 
This seems to be a bug.  Anyone has seen a dup of this bug?

Comment 8

[Alfred Kayser]

The 'quick launch' disappearance is probably intentional.
As described above 'Dynamic Theme Switching' doesn't work,
so switching a theme needs a full restart of Mozilla (including 
the 'quicklaunch' (which effectively keeps Mozilla in memory).

Comment 9

[石庭豐 (Seak, Teng-Fong)]

That's what I thought as well.  But in normal situation, because of another bug,
when the last Mozilla window (be it browser or mailer or whatever) is closed,
the quick launch icon will disappear and reappear again in the system tray. 
This behaviour gives the feeling that Mozilla restarts itself (which is not true
as you've stated it since Mozilla still stays inside memory).

So, when a new theme is selected and we're told to restart Mozilla, we will
naturally close all Mozilla windows.  Then the quick launch icon will disappear
too.  But because of the (weird) behaviour stated in the previous paragraph, a
user (at least me) would expect the icon to come back by itself, and he would
finally realise that it won't.  The first time I changed the theme, I was
waiting for a whole minute before I'm convinced that the icon wouldn't come back
again because there was no more hard disk activity.  I didn't restart Mozilla
manually after the first ten seconds because I'm afraid by doing so, there'll be
some conflict inside the O/S.

Well, after installing a few themes, one should get used to this but the first
time experience is always the most important.  Maybe the dialog, in addition to
telling user to restart Mozilla, should also warn that the quick launch icon
will disappear definitively and the user has to run Mozilla again manually?

Comment 10

[alacqua]

I'm not sure if this is related, but in both 1.7rc2 and 1.7rc3 I have been
unable to get my change to the modern theme to stick. However, it *does* change
the theme for exactly one restart. So I have to change my theme to modern every
other time I run mozilla. This behavior first appeared when I installed 1.7rc2.
I always uninstall the prior version of mozilla when installing the new one, and
one thing I did differently during the install of 1.7rc2 was to delete the
entire mozilla.org folder when prompted to do so by the uninstaller I launched
through "add/remove programs".

Comment 11

[石庭豐 (Seak, Teng-Fong)]

IMO, you have done right to delete the whole mozilla.org folder.  I had done so
too but haven't had any problem.

The cause of your problem must be something else.  Have you tried to uninstall
and reinstall again?  And when you change to modern theme, have you quitted all
mozilla windows and exit the quick launch?

Comment 12

[alacqua]

(In reply to comment #11)
> The cause of your problem must be something else.  Have you tried to uninstall
> and reinstall again?  And when you change to modern theme, have you quitted all
> mozilla windows and exit the quick launch?

I uninstalled 1.7RC2 in order to install 1.7RC3, so I figure its not simply an
uninstall/reinstall problem. I never use quick launch and I have exited from all
windows. In fact, this behavior manifests itself even after powering-down the
computer. Changing the default "classic" to "modern" only sticks for the next
launch of mozilla.

Note that I originally posted this response here in error. I meant to respond to
bug # 231302 (Just installed 1.6 Cannot change themes now in browser), and when
I discovered my error I also responded there.

Comment 13

[Philip Chee]

WFM Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:10.0a1) Gecko/20111104 SeaMonkey/2.7a1