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Dark Mode doesn't automatically change

J

jww062

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 1, 2012
75
7
Hi everyone,

I have the Catalina GM installed, and set the appearance to Auto. However, it has not changed from Dark Mode since I installed it, regardless of the time of day. Is there something else I'm missing?

The only thing I can think of that may be relevant was I used this tutorial in the past with Mojave to create a keyboard shortcut to toggle: https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...ode-with-a-keyboard-shortcut-or-the-touch-bar. I've since removed this automator script and shortcut.

Thanks in advance!
 
Make sure to link it to Night Mode, like it says in the fine print.
Having said that, auto dark mode isn't working properly for me on any platform except tvOS. Not iOS, not macOS, not iPadOS.
I've set them all to sunrise/sunset but nothing happens. I think one device auto switched correctly yesterday, but long after sunset... perhaps a daylight savings bug again (seems to happen a lot with Apple).

Edit (Hmm, now the iOS/iPadOS devices switched, half an hour late. The Mac didn't switch to dark mode until I did a quick sleep/wake. Not sure how the half hour offset happens...)
 
Last edited:
donawalt said:
I posted the same problem on Catalina earlier, @jww062. I ended up going back to Night Owl. @Anuba it has worked great for me on my iPhone and iPad, not sure what is going on in Catalina that it misses sunrise and sunset when Night Shift comes on promptly.
Click to expand...
Exactly, the screen gets the warm nighshift color right on cue so the problem lies elsewhere.

iOS 13 dark mode is half an hour late on my devices (2 iPhones, 1 iPad Pro). I was watching all three at sunset... nothing. Checked again after 20-ish minutes, still nothing. After half an hour all three got the same push notification and now they all displayed it in dark mode.

Not sure how that would happen, my only theory is that it somehow snaps to the default city in my timezone, where the sun currently sets 27 minutes later than it does for me way north of that location.
 
Another sunset, another headscratching session over Dark Mode.
My observations tonight:

- Sunset at 5:24 PM according to Apple's weather app, Apple Watch etc.
- At 5:24 PM my MBP, my iPad Pro 10.5 and my iPhone Xs all entered Night Shift on cue, as configured.
- None of them switched to Dark Mode at this time, in spite of being configured to do so.
- During the next 45+ minutes I periodically woke the iOS devices from standby to see if dark mode had kicked in. Nope. Notifications, dock etc, all light grey.
- On the Mac I did the opposite, i.e. it was on the whole time but I hit Option+Cmd+Eject every 5 minutes or so to see which mode it was in when it came back on. Nothing.
- At 6:13 the iPad was on (still no dark mode), the iPhone was in standby so I woke it up. Now Dark Mode at kicked in there, 49 minutes past sunset.
- Nothing happened on the iPad so around 6:15 I pressed the sleep button and woke it up again. It came back in dark mode.
- Did the same with the MBP (entered standby) around 6:16. Came back on still not in dark mode.
- Repeated the MBP procedure at 6:18. Now it came back in dark mode.

Ummm... yeah so I don't even know how it's supposed to work. Should it not switch when you're using the device, only when it comes out of standby? And how are they all between 50-55 minutes late? An hour, fine, then it's a daylight savings bug, but this?
 
My iPad and iPhone work perfectly. My MacBook Pro though, Night Shift works perfectly, I use the dynamic desktop wallpaper of Catalina and it's turned dark, but my system is still in Light Mode. Even if I go in to Preferences and turn it to Dark and go back to Automatic, it goes back to light mode. And as of right now, sunset was 35 minutes ago. It will be interesting to see if it's a daylight savings issue, in which case it will turn dark in 25 minutes.

EDIT: Just went to Dark Mode, at 7:18 PM - 42 minutes late. No explanation for that.
 
Last edited:
donawalt said:
My iPad and iPhone work perfectly. My MacBook Pro though, Night Shift works perfectly, I use the dynamic desktop wallpaper of Catalina and it's turned dark, but my system is still in Light Mode. Even if I go in to Preferences and turn it to Dark and go back to Automatic, it goes back to light mode. And as of right now, sunset was 35 minutes ago. It will be interesting to see if it's a daylight savings issue, in which case it will turn dark in 25 minutes.

EDIT: Just went to Dark Mode, at 7:18 PM - 42 minutes late. No explanation for that.
Click to expand...
This is my experience as well. It'll show the nighttime wallpaper automatically, but remain in Light Mode. I'll pick up my iPhone and iPad-- both in dark mode as expected. So, not really sure what's going on here.
 
donawalt said:
My iPad and iPhone work perfectly. My MacBook Pro though, Night Shift works perfectly, I use the dynamic desktop wallpaper of Catalina and it's turned dark, but my system is still in Light Mode. Even if I go in to Preferences and turn it to Dark and go back to Automatic, it goes back to light mode. And as of right now, sunset was 35 minutes ago. It will be interesting to see if it's a daylight savings issue, in which case it will turn dark in 25 minutes.

EDIT: Just went to Dark Mode, at 7:18 PM - 42 minutes late. No explanation for that.
Click to expand...

What city are you in? Is the timezone/date/time set automatically or manually on your Mac?
Is Calendar set to sync with iCloud as on your iPhone (if you have a third party app like Outlook on iOS) - is that set to a different timezone that could overwrite iOS/macOS core setup? Just a thought.
 
Anuba said:
Another sunset, another headscratching session over Dark Mode.
My observations tonight:

- Sunset at 5:24 PM according to Apple's weather app, Apple Watch etc.
- At 5:24 PM my MBP, my iPad Pro 10.5 and my iPhone Xs all entered Night Shift on cue, as configured.
- None of them switched to Dark Mode at this time, in spite of being configured to do so.
- During the next 45+ minutes I periodically woke the iOS devices from standby to see if dark mode had kicked in. Nope. Notifications, dock etc, all light grey.
- On the Mac I did the opposite, i.e. it was on the whole time but I hit Option+Cmd+Eject every 5 minutes or so to see which mode it was in when it came back on. Nothing.
- At 6:13 the iPad was on (still no dark mode), the iPhone was in standby so I woke it up. Now Dark Mode at kicked in there, 49 minutes past sunset.
- Nothing happened on the iPad so around 6:15 I pressed the sleep button and woke it up again. It came back in dark mode.
- Did the same with the MBP (entered standby) around 6:16. Came back on still not in dark mode.
- Repeated the MBP procedure at 6:18. Now it came back in dark mode.

Ummm... yeah so I don't even know how it's supposed to work. Should it not switch when you're using the device, only when it comes out of standby? And how are they all between 50-55 minutes late? An hour, fine, then it's a daylight savings bug, but this?
Click to expand...
Aaand here's the observed morning behavior:

iPhone/iPad came out of dark mode around 06:55 AM, half an hour before sunrise at 07:24 AM.
Mac came out of dark mode at 07:03. Happened automatically while the screen was on. I had Safari and a newly installed Twitter for Mac open and they both flipped from dark grey bg to white as I was watching.

Too late at night + too early in the morning would definitely point to a time zone/location issue, but that's all set automatically. And all the devices know perfectly well what's up with location/time since Night Shift, dynamic wallpaper, day/night background in the weather app etc all works just like it should. And it's not like Dark Mode is a listed system service that can be allowed/blocked from using location services, so I have no idea why Dark Mode somehow thinks I'm not in northern Sweden (or anywhere in Sweden really) but rather in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and that it's October 2nd or so.
 
DeepIn2U said:
What city are you in? Is the timezone/date/time set automatically or manually on your Mac?
Is Calendar set to sync with iCloud as on your iPhone (if you have a third party app like Outlook on iOS) - is that set to a different timezone that could overwrite iOS/macOS core setup? Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Thanks @DeepIn2U for the reply. I am in Baltimore, I Just verified date/time set automatically (and it is correct), and time zone is Eastern Daylight time - correct. Calendar does NOT sync with iCloud on any of my devices, as I use Google for Calendar/Contacts/Mail. I just verified these settings are identical on iPhone and MacBook Pro, and that every other toggle is on for syncing to iCloud.
 
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Today I didn't get the exact time as I got immersed in my work lol, but sunrise was 7:13, iPhone flipped to Light right away, MacBook Pro flipped at around 7:40.
 
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I seem to have made some progress here, although still some issues like those you are all describing.

Previously, "AUTO" would always be dark mode, regardless of the time of day.

Now, if I go to System Prefs > General, click any of the two static settings and then switch it back to Auto, it will set it to whatever it should be for that time of day.

I've also observed it change on it's own, although hours after it has supposed to.

I have had no issues on iOS/iPadOS on either of those devices.
 
So, it appears to be off by an hour. Mine switched to dark mode sometime between that post (at 7:16pm) and now (7:38pm). Our sunset for tonight is listed on the Weather Channel (Apple's weather source) as 6:25pm.
 
Try this. Go to System Preferences, Security and Privacy, System Services, and click on Details. Make sure location services for wifi calling are turned on. Its a long shot. Just a hunch. Trying it for the first time today. Mine was turned off
 
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