1842385 - Browser sometimes gets in an unreadable mix of light and dark theme

Status: NEW

(Firefox for Android :: Design System and Theming, defect)

Description

[Ariane Bouchard]

Attachment: Screenshot_20230708_130253_Firefox.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 13; Mobile; rv:109.0) Gecko/115.0 Firefox/115.0

Steps to reproduce:

Visit Jisho.org with Android set to light mode in the daytime and dark mode at night (currently light mode) and Firefox set to (I think) dark mode. It's hard to say with certainty what mode I was in since, as you'll see in screenshots, the settings menu was unreadable and I only managed to do anything by blindly clicking.

I happened to change the Firefox theme from (I think) dark mode to follow device theme, which made it... Dark mode. Weirdly. If I set it back to dark mode though, it'll so dark mode properly. Same for light mode.

Device info:

Samsung Galaxy S22+

Android 13
One UI 5.1
Google Play system update May 1, 2023
Android security patch June 1, 2023

Actual results:

The notification bar is white text on a light grey background, making it nearly unreadable. Settings are light grey in a light grey background (and thus most text is entirely invisible).

Expected results:

Firefox obeys its own setting and doesn't apply the light mode background and the dark mode foreground colors at the same time, forcing the user to blindly tap a nearly blank screen to switch it to a non-buggy color theme. Also, when I change the theme to follow device theme, it should indeed follow the device theme instead of doing the reverse.

Comment 1

[Ariane Bouchard]

Attachment: Screenshot_20230708_130236_Firefox.png

Look at the status bar

Comment 2

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

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

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 3

[SlowNicoFish]

This seems to happen when the phone has switched to dark or light mode with Firefox in the background. (Not killed in app switcher)

Comment 4

[Mark]

Possible duplicate of bug 1873022 and bug 1871015 and bug 1872306

I think these all have the same underlying cause but with a couple of different visible behaviors

1. Fenix sometimes does not obey system dark/light theme
2. Fenix dark/light theme is sometimes not internally consistent (status bar, toolbar & web content have different themes at the same time)
3. Fenix status bar & Settings menu text/background sometimes incorrectly themed (eg dark text on dark background or light text on light background)

Comment 5

[SlowNicoFish]

Happens on v.123 as well.
Android 14 One Ui

Comment 6

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

This bug might be fixed by bug 1940902.

Comment 7

[Mira Lobontiu (Android QA)]

Thank you for the report!

QA is unable to reproduce this issue anymore.
Tested on the latest Firefox for android Nightly 136.0a1 from 1/17 with a Samsung Galaxy S24 (Android 14), Oppo Find X3 Lite (Android 11), and Xiaomi Mi8 Lite (Android 10).

Could you please retry on your device as well?

Comment 8

[Ariane Bouchard]

I've switched my device back to switching light/dark modes according to sunrise and sunset, and Firefox is in "follow device theme".

If the issue is still present, there's a high chance I'll encounter it in the next few days.

I'm currently on Firefox "normal":

134.0.1 (Build #2016067655)

Do I need to install a beta build or something or is that fine?

Comment 9

[Mira Lobontiu (Android QA)]

Thank you for the quick response!
If there is possible, please verify also on Firefox for Android Nightly (the app is available in PlayStore).

Comment 10

[Ariane Bouchard]

Got it. I'll try to reproduce on stable for a few days, and I'll switch to Nightly afterwards.

Comment 11

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

The bug has a release status flag that shows some version of Firefox is affected, thus it will be considered confirmed.