[Update: Optimizations being worked upon] MIUI 12.5 users complain of dark mode compatibility issues with apps like Messenger & Snapchat, no official fix in sight

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…

Original story (published on August 05, 2021) follows:

The now-staple dark mode was first injected into Xiaomi and Poco devices with MIUI 11. It did have its drawbacks though like visibility troubles during the day and being too bright at night – drawbacks that were quickly addressed with MIUI 12.

MIUI 12 introduced what Xiaomi liked to call Dark Mode 2.0. This feature automatically adjusts the weight of the font and dynamically sets the contrast levels for the best possible viewing experience.

Not only that but the mode also themes third-party apps along with the system ones for a more streamlined interface. At the time of launch, Dark Mode 2.0 was said to support 42 system apps and 20+ other mainstream applications ‘perfectly’.

However, the news is over a year old and MIUI 12 has now been superseded by MIUI 12.5. But there aren’t so many tweaks to dark mode with the update.

While the forced dark theme continues to be a hit or miss with third-party apps, there are a few apps where the theming is so bad that the apps are virtually rendered unusable.

For this, there have been several complaints [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] doing rounds on social media and the forums.

Hello im Mir using Xiaomi mi 11 ultra and im really impressed by the mobile camera, sound, speed everything but im really disappointed by MIUI 12.5 interface which isn’t mature yet so many bugs facing issue in dark mode
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Messenger dark mode bug. I’ve unchecked the app in the phone dark mode settings. I’m using the app’s native mode. When Messenger opens after it has been closed, it displays a white page like this instead of the list.
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As clear from the complaints, Facebook, Messenger, and Snapchat have particularly been hard hit by the issues, and turning on dark mode for them results in white backgrounds topped with white, invisible text.

However, the 3 Facebook-owned social media apps aren’t the sole victims as there have also been quite a few complaints about other apps being affected too with UI glitches, although none of them are as severely hit as the former.

If you are one of the users having to deal with such problems, then you will want to head over to Settings > Display > More Dark mode options and turn it off for the apps that are glitching out. This has been reported to be fruitless by some users though.

But if it’s the system UI where dark mode is being displayed incorrectly, then a community mod has recommended turning on the “Adjust wallpaper to Dark mode” option.

As for an official fix, well, it seems highly unlikely. This is because a moderator has stated that the MIUI 12 or MIUI 12.5 dark mode issues are an app problem and are hence unfixable by Xiaomi.

Thanks for reaching here in MIUI sub forum. This is the bug of latest Messenger app, it’s not a MIUI issue. Wait for future updates. Thanks.
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Makes sense considering that forcing dark mode on apps that do not officially support it is just a hack, and glitches are pretty expected. However, as in the case of Snapchat and Messenger, the apps appear to be unthemable.

Still, Xiaomi should at least focus on resolving the issue where glitches occur for apps like Messenger and Snapchat despite dark mode being toggled off for them. Hopefully, we will be seeing a fix for this in the near future.

A new post on Weibo by MIUI Xiaofan states that the team is working on optimizations to further improve dark mode. Hopefully, it will also resolve the above-mentioned problems. Do note that any fixes merged into MIUI may take a while to make it to the end-users.

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