Alfred transparency issues, MacOS 10.14

[thedave]

Hello! I'm having some transparency issues (there is no transparency) on MacOS 10.14, Alfred v3.7 [938].

 

I removed and reinstalled Alfred, to no avail. The transparency issues exist at a clean install, before I sync my settings folder.

 

Quick system report: 

  Model Name:    iMac
  Model Identifier:    iMac15,1
  Processor Name:    Intel Core i7
  Processor Speed:    4 GHz
  Number of Processors:    1
  Total Number of Cores:    4
  L2 Cache (per Core):    256 KB
  L3 Cache:    8 MB
  Memory:    32 GB

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon R9 M290X

  Type: GPU

  Bus: PCIe

 

Thanks!

[Andrew]

@thedave Is this happening with every Alfred theme, or just specific ones? If it's just a specific one, could you share this with me to take a look?

[thedave]

Hi @Andrew ,

 

It's happening for all themes. Thanks!

Edited October 5, 2018 by thedave

[niceSprite]

@Andrew

Hi, I had the same problem.

I don't know exactly when my Alfred lost transparency, but it must be related to some of my preference changes.

After changing to a new created macOS user account, I open Alfred and found the transparency is normal.

Can Alfred team locate the problem and fix it? Maybe I need to change to a new macOS user to make my Alfred appearance normal.

 

  Model Name: MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier: MacBookPro15,2

  Processor Name: Intel Core i5

  Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz

  Number of Processors: 1

  Total Number of Cores: 4

  L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

  L3 Cache: 6 MB

  Memory: 16 GB

[thedave]

SOLVED!

 

Thanks to @niceSprite for the pointer. I was able to recreate a new macOS account having transparency, so I started going through my list of customizations on my main account. 

 

It was a defaults issue with the key "NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance".

 

When I upgraded to Mojave, I lost the option to have a dark menu bar with light windows. I tried dark mode and didn't love it, and followed this article to get back my pre-Mojave menu bar color: https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/only-dark-menu-bar-dock-mojave/

 

So I did 

defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes

It wasn't perfect, so I reverted back with 

defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool No

That caused the issue. I re-read the article and found I should have deleted the key entirely. So I gave this a go: 

defaults delete -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance

After logging out and logging back in, transparency was back in Alfred. I don't know what this actually did that messed with Alfred's transparency specifically, but this was a resolution for me. Hopefully it will work for @niceSprite as well and we can call this resolved.

 

Cheers!

Edited November 15, 2018 by thedave
Grammar

[deanishe]

Great work, @thedave. Thanks very much for posting such a clear description of the cause of and solution to the issue. It will doubtless be very helpful to other folks.

[niceSprite]

Thank you for saving my time! I did change this preference for get dark menu bar in light mode. Then I decided to use default, but the article guided me use command

defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool No

to undo the preference, and thus cause the problem.

 

[thedave]

@deanishe I saw Alfred 3.8 has listed in the change log "Work around macOS 10.14 transparency issues" - is that this issue? Thanks!