1792047 - Private windows open in some sort of "Dark" mode

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Private Browsing, defect, P3)

Description

[therube]

Safe Mode opens in some sort of "Dark" (themed) mode.
(For me, for my eyes, that is wholly unusable.)

Dark theme is not enabled.
Default theme is.

Win7.
"Aero" (or whatever Windows may call it) is disabled on my end.

Comment 1

[therube]

Attachment: about:support

Comment 2

[therube]

Attachment: FF 107 normal.png

Comment 3

[therube]

Attachment: FF 107 Safe Mode.png

Comment 4

[therube]

Attachment: FF 75 Safe Mode for comparison.png

Comment 5

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:asa, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

I don't believe this bug belongs in the Disability Access component. Moving to General for triage.

Comment 7

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:timhuang, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 8

[Tim Huang[:timhuang]]

Paul will follow up this.

Comment 9

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

Reporter, could you clarify what you mean by "Safe Mode"? Do you mean private browsing mode, i.e. the window you're showing in the screenshots? If so, the behavior is expected, it's a design change we made for Firefox 106, see Bug 1749375. If you don't like this behavior you can switch the "Light" theme in about:addons => Themes. This will force PBM windows to always be light themed.

Comment 10

[therube]

Attachment: Firefox Private Browsing window turned black - even with Light Mode enabled.png

Comment 11

[therube]

Attachment: Firefox Private Browsing - Informaction thread.png

Comment 12

[therube]

Safe Mode opens in some sort of "Dark" (themed) mode.

Heh. Messed up there, didn't I.

Yes, I meant, Private Browsing.
Unfortunately, Light mode provides no relief.

I find it very difficult to use this Dark mode.
Dark mode simply does not work well for my eyes.

Similarly "dark" issue at informaction.com, https://forums.informaction.com/viewtopic.php?p=106199#p106199 (where the website pages went "dark" & where he now allows selection of "light" & 2 different "dark" themes).

Comment 13

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

Thanks!

Hmm, I don't think it's prefers-color-scheme. When I set that to "dark" the site you linked still has a light theme. It also looks like the window (chrome) isn't dark themed in private browsing anymore as in the screenshot in comment 3. Did explicitly switching to the light theme fix that?

The site may also have a setting where it switches theme. Could you try to clear data for the site via the lock icon "Clear cookies and site data" (this will log you out too)?

Comment 14

[therube]

the site you linked still has a light theme

The site is not the issue.
(In this shot, https://bug1792047.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=9303337, that was simply an example of a website that went "dark", that then made it very difficult for to then utilize.)

The issue is the dark UX of FF itself - in Private Browsing, like the right-most shot here shows, https://bug1792047.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=9303336.

Did explicitly switching to the light theme fix that?

No.
In that same screenshot, I have explicitly set Light.
Yet the FF "chrome" (is that what it is called) is still dark. File, Edit, View... Bookmarks... are all dark.

As it is, even the FF Light (or Automatic) "theme" is extremely poor - for me.
(And virtually every "theme" that I tested from AMO too. So at that point, I was like, well, I'll roll my own & came up with, https://bug1792047.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=9303337. And while "it ain't pretty", it does work.

And then the other part of the problem is that "my theme" is not "mine" - cause I need an extension to even "have it", & then I don't really even "have it" - at least I'm not "aware" of where it is, such that I can open a new Profile & say, "hey, use my existing theme" - because it isn't "mine", but lives in the cloud, or some far off land I suppose.)

Low Vision ideas: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3083402

Comment 15

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

Thanks for confirming! Sorry for the delay here.
I'm still not able to reproduce on Windows 11 or Windows 10, I might need to set up a Windows 7 machine and try it there.

Reporter, could you try to reproduce the issue in a fresh profile? That is:

1. Go to about:profiles and create a new profile and launch it
2. In the new profile switch to the light theme in about:addons
3. Open a private browsing window and see if it's still dark-themed.

Thanks!

Comment 16

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

Dao, do you have an idea what could be the issue here causing the PBM window to be dark themed even if the user has the light theme enabled? Do you have suggestions for other things we could try?

AFAIC the dark variant should not get applied for PBM windows when the light theme is enabled, because the light theme does not have the darkTheme key. Is that correct?

Comment 17

[therube]

try to reproduce the issue in a fresh profile?

Issue persists.

Comment 18

[therube]

Attachment: FF 78esr Private Browsing is LIGHT.png

FF78, (same) Win7 system, for comparison.

Comment 19

[therube]

Attachment: FF DARK WIN10.png

And this is what I see in FF109 on a Win10 system.

Comment 20

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

(In reply to therube from comment #18)

Created attachment 9304760 [details]
FF 78esr Private Browsing is LIGHT.png

FF78, (same) Win7 system, for comparison.

This is expected, because 78esr doesn't have Bug 1749375 which added dark PBM windows.

(In reply to therube from comment #19)

Created attachment 9304761 [details]
FF DARK WIN10.png

And this is what I see in FF109 on a Win10 system.

This is with the light theme explicitly enabled? Then Windows 10 would be affected too.

Let's wait for Dao's feedback. Maybe there is something I missed about the theming implementation.

Comment 21

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Paul Zühlcke [:pbz] from comment #16)

Dao, do you have an idea what could be the issue here causing the PBM window to be dark themed even if the user has the light theme enabled? Do you have suggestions for other things we could try?

AFAIC the dark variant should not get applied for PBM windows when the light theme is enabled, because the light theme does not have the darkTheme key. Is that correct?

It looks like the user selected "Light" under "Website appearance" in about:preferences rather than the Light theme from about:addons? In that case, I would expect that private windows still use the dark theme for the browser UI, but without putting web content in dark mode.

Comment 22

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

Thanks! Good point, I might have missed that! Let's confirm.

Comment 23

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

Attachment: light-theme-switch-pbm.mov

Sorry for asking again, but I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing here. Does the issue get fixed when you switch to the light theme like shown in the video? At the end of the video you can see that the private browsing window is no longer dark themed.

Comment 24

[therube]

In all cases before, I had been switching to; about:preferences -> Language and Appears (did you know you cannot COPY that string from the GUI!), Website appearance (nor that string) -> Light

Switching the theme, by actually changing the theme, does work.

But, I do not want to change the theme (to Light) as that does not work nearly as well (for me) as does my customized theme, yellow & something?, as it is, https://bug1792047.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=9303337.

I'll note, once you change the theme (to "Light"), there is no obvious way to "un-Light" it.
(Had to go to about:addons -> Extensions, then disable/enable "Firefox Color", before I could get "my" theme back.)

And with that...

Once I had "my" theme back, AND, with about:addons -> Themes, AND with Light theme still enabled, at that point, a Private Window opens - with "my" theme in place & I'm happy.

That said, it is a rather terrible UX from the (U)sers perspective & one I never even would have figured would have done what it did to begin with.
(And that it even "worked", may even be more of a fluke rather then intended behavior?)

While "black" may be "cool", IMO, it would be much better if FF default theme was Light, & let the user decide to change to (whatever it is that FF currently defaults to). /Presumably ?/ if that had been the case, I would never have run into the situation at all.

(Yet another "black" program that I happened to look at today, that its' UI simply does not work for me, simply cause it is black, https://www.videohelp.com/softwareimages/yt_dlp_gui_1878.jpg. Blown up, as the screenshot shows, it doesn't look too bad. But download the program, & in actually use, for me, it is.)

Comment 25

[therube]

Attachment: Newegg Black Black Friday vs Link on website.png

Another example of "black", that does not work for me.

In my email, on the left, I get what you see.
What do I see?
A black background with most every product listed - being black.
So for me, one simply blurs into the other, & my brain simply says - ignore.
It simply does not work, for me.

And yet, I click the link in the ad, "View this email in your browser", & guess what?
While the background is still black, the individual items are in a white frame.
And that, I can deal with.
With that, I can say, oh, that might interest me.
I can "see" & identify with each product, & in my brain, it makes sense to me.

Where the ad, in my email, simply says - does not compute.

(Between getting the email, which is a number of days old at this point, & clicking the link to "View on website, just now, the "website" ad may have changed, accounting for difference in the actual products seen.)

Comment 26

[therube]

So while, using my theme, AND, switching from FF's default Theme, to FF's Light Theme (& then toggling my Firefox Colors /extension/ off & then back on) does get me to a workable solution, that is far from an obvious solution.

(Are you confused by that statement?
If someone told me that was the solution I needed, & that is what they wrote, to get me where I wanted to go, I would surely be confused by it.)

Comment 27

[therube]

Matter of fact, way back when (in this thread) when Paul said, ""Light" theme in about:addons => Themes", that distinction, between /that/ location & "about:preferences -> Language and Appearance -> Website Appearance -> Light", did not even dawn on me (until I am now re-reading this thread).

And as far as that goes, until this very moment, I didn't even realize just what "about:preferences -> Language and Appearance -> Website Appearance" was intended to do. (And in that respect, I had been in the wrong spot all along!)

about:preferences, I "know" about. (Guess I don't know as much as I thought.)
about:addons, I "know" about.

Though Themes in addons is not a place I would typically frequent.
Ordinarily, all through the years, I never had issue with any default themes in a browser.
More recently (but for quite a while now), FF default theme did not work for me. Nor did other FF "built-in" themes, like Light.
And then when I "tested out" 100's of themes from AMO, none of theme worked well for me either.
Not until I "built my own", did I have something that was usable, for me.

So after all of this, the "fix" is to use "my theme", along with specifically selecting FF's built-in Light theme.

(Took a long time coming, but I think I'm now where I need to be.)

Thanks.

Comment 28

[Emma Zühlcke [:emz]]

(In reply to therube from comment #27)

Matter of fact, way back when (in this thread) when Paul said, ""Light" theme in about:addons => Themes", that distinction, between /that/ location & "about:preferences -> Language and Appearance -> Website Appearance -> Light", did not even dawn on me (until I am now re-reading this thread).

And as far as that goes, until this very moment, I didn't even realize just what "about:preferences -> Language and Appearance -> Website Appearance" was intended to do. (And in that respect, I had been in the wrong spot all along!)

about:preferences, I "know" about. (Guess I don't know as much as I thought.)
about:addons, I "know" about.

Though Themes in addons is not a place I would typically frequent.
Ordinarily, all through the years, I never had issue with any default themes in a browser.
More recently (but for quite a while now), FF default theme did not work for me. Nor did other FF "built-in" themes, like Light.
And then when I "tested out" 100's of themes from AMO, none of theme worked well for me either.
Not until I "built my own", did I have something that was usable, for me.

So after all of this, the "fix" is to use "my theme", along with specifically selecting FF's built-in Light theme.

(Took a long time coming, but I think I'm now where I need to be.)

Thanks.

Thanks for confirming that switching to the light theme fixes the issue! I'll close this bug because the feature is working is intended.
If you have other technical issues with theming, you talked about "FF default theme did not work for me" feel free to file another bug and we can take a look!

Comment 29

[therube]

from: dickvl
Note that for PB mode you can set browser.theme.dark-private-windows = false on about:config.

;-)