Theme Colors Keep Changing to Pastel Colors

[MikeOrtiz01]

Type: Bug

No matter what theme I choose, the syntax colors keep changing to pastel colors. This makes the code look busy and more difficult to read. The colors look correct after restarting vscode, but shortly after the colors change to the pastel colors. The screenshot is from the light modern theme.

VS Code version: Code 1.96.4 (cd4ee3b, 2025-01-16T00:16:19.038Z)
OS version: Linux x64 5.4.0-205-generic snap
Modes:
Remote OS version: Linux x64 5.15.0-57-generic

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz (8 x 2000)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: disabled_software vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: disabled_off webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	1, 1, 1
Memory (System)	31.21GB (23.71GB free)
Process Argv	--no-sandbox --force-user-env --crash-reporter-id d0ede2bc-5fbb-4d35-b277-abeace8a36aa
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%
DESKTOP_SESSION	ubuntu
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP	Unity
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP	ubuntu
XDG_SESSION_TYPE	x11

Item	Value
Remote	SSH: work
OS	Linux x64 5.15.0-57-generic
CPUs	AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor (32 x 2195)
Memory (System)	62.73GB (46.74GB free)
VM	0%

Extensions (5)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
remote-ssh	ms-	0.117.1
remote-ssh-edit	ms-	0.87.0
remote-explorer	ms-	0.4.3
ccls	ccl	0.1.31
gitlens	eam	16.3.0

A/B Experiments

vsliv368cf:30146710
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vswsl492cf:30256860
pythonvspyt551cf:31179979
vscod805cf:30301675
binariesv615:30325510
py29gd2263:31024239
14424t2-chatv3:31237394
c4g48928:30535728
azure-dev_surveyone:30548225
2i9eh265:30646982
962ge761:30959799
h48ei257:31000450
pythontbext0:30879054
cppperfnew:31000557
dwnewjupyter:31046869
nativerepl1:31139838
pythonrstrctxt:31112756
nativeloc2:31192216
iacca1:31171482
5fd0e150:31155592
dwcopilot:31170013
stablechunks:31184530
6074i472:31201624
dwoutputscf:31238124
customenabled:31237564
5a9hg449:31230677
9064b325:31222308
copilot_t_ci:31222730
jda6j935:31233686
g941i948:31240199

[vs-code-engineering]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code, the latest stable release is 1.97.2. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[MikeOrtiz01]

The issue still persists after updating vscode to 1.97.2.

VS Code version: Code 1.97.2 (e54c774, 2025-02-12T23:20:35.343Z)
OS version: Linux x64 5.15.0-131-generic snap
Modes:
Remote OS version: Linux x64 5.15.0-57-generic

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz (8 x 1888)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: disabled_software vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: disabled_off webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	2, 2, 1
Memory (System)	31.21GB (23.45GB free)
Process Argv	--no-sandbox --force-user-env --crash-reporter-id d0ede2bc-5fbb-4d35-b277-abeace8a36aa
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%
DESKTOP_SESSION	ubuntu
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP	Unity
XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP	ubuntu
XDG_SESSION_TYPE	x11

Item	Value
Remote	SSH: work
OS	Linux x64 5.15.0-57-generic
CPUs	AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor (32 x 2195)
Memory (System)	62.73GB (59.62GB free)
VM	0%

Extensions (5)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
remote-ssh	ms-	0.117.1
remote-ssh-edit	ms-	0.87.0
remote-explorer	ms-	0.4.3
ccls	ccl	0.1.31
gitlens	eam	16.3.0

A/B Experiments

vsliv368cf:30146710
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vswsl492cf:30256860
pythonvspyt551cf:31179979
vscod805cf:30301675
binariesv615:30325510
py29gd2263:31024239
14424t2-chatv3:31237394
c4g48928:30535728
azure-dev_surveyone:30548225
2i9eh265:30646982
962ge761:30959799
h48ei257:31000450
pythontbext0:30879054
cppperfnew:31000557
dwnewjupyter:31046869
nativerepl1:31139838
pythonrstrctxt:31112756
nativeloc2:31192216
iacca1:31171482
5fd0e150:31155592
dwcopilot:31170013
stablechunks:31184530
6074i472:31201624
dwoutputscf:31238124
customenabled:31237564
5a9hg449:31230677
9064b325:31222308
copilot_t_ci:31222730
jda6j935:31233686
g941i948:31240199

[aeschli]

Can you set the cursor to a symbol that has the pastel color and run the Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes command?
Please provide a screenshot of that hover.

[MikeOrtiz01]

Here is the screenshot you requested:

[MikeOrtiz01]

Here are two more screenshots of the Stream class member variables in the constructor. Notice they are different colors.

[wks]

I can confirm this. Here is a screenshot:

I grepped the color code e5b124 in my ~/.config directory. This string exists in .config/Code - OSS/CachedProfilesData/__default__profile__/extensions.user.cache. It is under some configuration of the "ccls" extension which I also installed for developing C/C++. I can also find the colors @MikeOrtiz01 observed (#e4b953, #83c65d and #5ec648) in that file, too, under "ccls" settings.

I disabled the "ccls" extension and the problem went away. Here is another screenshot:

It looks like the ccls extension is the culprit. But I don't know why one extension (ccls) can affect the color of another extension (rust-analyzer).

[aeschli]

Looks like that extension is highly creative and changes the defaults of the user setting that defines the semantic colors:
https://github.com/MaskRay/vscode-ccls/blob/919fa0190613f01c442bb7950d60bfe897c6bcae/package.json#L725

Unfortunately, that will apply to all themes, and, it seems, multiple languages.

Thanks for filing MaskRay/vscode-ccls#147

[MikeOrtiz01]

The issue was introduced with ccls version 1.30, which was released recently. I ended up rolling back the ccls extension to version 1.29. The colors are now as expected... Thanks @wks for pointing out the issue with ccls.