Dark mode not applying on certain apps in Ubuntu 23.10

Question

I have ubuntu 23.10 installed on a dual boot system along side windows 11. On ubuntu i have selected dark theme/style in the appearance menu but some applications like snap, settings, Files and other system applications are getting launched in light mode.settings page, snap window, Files window

I have tried to restart the system multiple times, used gnome tweaks and even tried resetting gnome settings, but nothing has worked and it still these system applications open in light mode

Answer 1

I had the same issue after running my automated system-customisation scripts on a fresh Ubuntu-23.10 installation. After hours of research and experimentation I solved the problem for my case, but found that other people had the exact same or similar symptoms due to other cause, so here I've summarised all potential fixes that I've learned:

Potential Solutions

• uninstall all incompatible gnome extensions, even if they are disabled
  disabling all extensions is recommended when troubleshooting anyway
• run the following shell commands (or edit the settings manually in the dconf-editor):

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.ubuntu color-scheme prefer-dark
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-theme Yaru-dark # for legacy apps, can specify an accent such as Yaru-olive-dark
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface color-scheme prefer-dark # for new apps

• check the contents of the folders ~/.config/gtk-3.0 and ~/.config/gtk-4.0
  • For example, I found mine had a settings.ini file with an entry gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme=0, which I promptly changed to gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme=1
• Make sure the xdg-desktop-portal-gnome and xdg-desktop-portal packages are installed. I found in Manjaro forums that that OS had a Gnome 45 issue with the exact same symptoms described here, which they could fix by installing those packages. I think they're installed by default on Ubuntu-23.10, though.