Zorin OS Wayland: How to fix legacy blue title bars on Spotify and Chrome?

General Help
1

Hello everyone,

I'm using Zorin OS with a Wayland session and I'm facing an annoying visual issue with some applications. Apps like Spotify (both Flatpak and .deb) and the Google Chrome profile picker window are showing a blue, legacy-style title bar (it looks like Windows 95/classic theme) instead of the native window decorations.

On Xorg (X11), the windows look perfectly fine.

chrome profile
chrome profile1317×179 13 KB

spotify wayland

What I've verified so far:

  • I checked GNOME's Looking Glass (lg), and the windows are indeed running as native Wayland surfaces (metaSurfaceActorWayland), not XWayland.
  • In Chrome, Preferred Ozone platform is set to Wayland. The main browser window is fine, but the "Who's using Chrome?" startup window always shows the blue bar.
  • For Spotify, I tried launching with: --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland and even --enable-features=WaylandWindowDecorations. The app runs in Wayland, but the blue border persists.

It seems like Mutter is forcing a Server-Side Decoration (SSD) fallback because these apps aren't communicating their CSD (Client-Side Decorations) correctly to the Zorin environment.

System Info:

  • OS: Zorin OS 18
  • Session: Wayland
  • Apps affected: Spotify, Chrome (Profile Picker), and some other apps.
  • VGA: 9070XT With MESA 25.3

Has anyone found a way to force these apps to use the system theme or at least hide this blue fallback bar?

Thanks in advance!

2

Did You have added any Third-Party Themes? Even when they are no longer used.

3

It's a cross all distro its affected. Tested on elementary OS and Solus OS. So it's not specific to Zorin. My guess is that Spotify is packed wrongly from host.

4

No, it's a default installation of ZorinOS 18 Pro. I only selected the Windows 10-like theme in Zorin Appearance. However, the issue persists even if I select any other theme within Zorin Appearance. The problem only disappears if I log in using XORG (X11) instead of Wayland. But I want to use Wayland because of my 165Hz and 144Hz monitors; on XORG, the refresh rate feels off/jittery.

5

So, do I have to wait for a fix from the app developers?

6

I actually meant Themes. For making a different Look for Your System. Not Layouts.

7

It's been the same for me since the update. I have Zorin OS 18 Standard Theme. I think we'll have to wait for a fix from the app developers.

More Infos https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/1rdrss5/how_to_remove_ugly_blue_bar_on_top/?tl=de

8

Alright, in that case, let's just wait for a fix from the developers.

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