Reduce Transparency on after every restart

[iTom17]

Hello everyone,

I few weeks ago I was 'playing around' with some settings of my MacBook Pro. One of those settings was the one to reduce transparency. You know, just to see how that looks like. After trying it out I turned it off. But since then every time I boot/restart my Mac it turns back on. I can't find anything related to this problem on Google or MacRumors. Does anyone have a suggestion for what solution there is to solve it?

I mean, it's not like it is the end of the world, but having to turn 'reduce transparency' off every time I boot or restart my Mac is a little nuts, right? xD

 

[twistofmatt]

Do you have Duet Display installed? I had this problem with that application. It's supposed to turn it on when you use are the app, but then turn it off. In my instance, it would never turn off.

 

[mag01]

The following terminal command returns 1 after every restart?

defaults read com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency

You may try to write there 0 (false) via

defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency -bool FALSE

and then check it again after logging out and back in. In the worst case you may try a sort of dumb (but usually working) approach which is resetting the Accessibility configuration. Locate the file
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist and move it somewhere else (to desktop or some temporary directory). Log out and log back in. Better now? If yes, then adjust the other Accessibility settings as you like and it should be fine.
You can then delete that com.apple.universalaccess.plist file you moved to some temporary location.
If that didn't help, move it back into its original location as the problem will be elsewhere (some 3rd party application as twistofmatt suggests etc)

 

[iTom17]

Do you have Duet Display installed? I had this problem with that application. It's supposed to turn it on when you use are the app, but then turn it off. In my instance, it would never turn off.

I did indeed install Duet Display yeah.

The following terminal command returns 1 after every restart?

defaults read com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency

You may try to write there 0 (false) via

defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency -bool FALSE

and then check it again after logging out and back in. In the worst case you may try a sort of dumb (but usually working) approach which is resetting the Accessibility configuration. Locate the file
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist and move it somewhere else (to desktop or some temporary directory). Log out and log back in. Better now? If yes, then adjust the other Accessibility settings as you like and it should be fine.
You can then delete that com.apple.universalaccess.plist file you moved to some temporary location.
If that didn't help, move it back into its original location as the problem will be elsewhere (some 3rd party application as twistofmatt suggests etc)

I'll try that right away and get back to this.

EDIT: Yes, the problem has been solved! I used your first solution (turning it off through the Terminal). Thanks for the help man.

 

[Ejfmail]

I did indeed install Duet Display yeah.


I'll try that right away and get back to this.

EDIT: Yes, the problem has been solved! I used your first solution (turning it off through the Terminal). Thanks for the help man.

Thanks! the terminal command worked perfectly. Also have Duet installed. So great to have the help!!!!

 

[Coshy]

The following terminal command returns 1 after every restart?

defaults read com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency

You may try to write there 0 (false) via

defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency -bool FALSE

and then check it again after logging out and back in. In the worst case you may try a sort of dumb (but usually working) approach which is resetting the Accessibility configuration. Locate the file
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist and move it somewhere else (to desktop or some temporary directory). Log out and log back in. Better now? If yes, then adjust the other Accessibility settings as you like and it should be fine.
You can then delete that com.apple.universalaccess.plist file you moved to some temporary location.
If that didn't help, move it back into its original location as the problem will be elsewhere (some 3rd party application as twistofmatt suggests etc)

Thank you, took me some time to find the right answer! It was annoying that the reduced transparance config wasn't persistent after reboot and I would always get a grey background on the lock screen.

It seems Duet was the culprit for me.

 

[jnoyce]

The following terminal command returns 1 after every restart?

defaults read com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency

You may try to write there 0 (false) via

defaults write com.apple.universalaccess reduceTransparency -bool FALSE

and then check it again after logging out and back in. In the worst case you may try a sort of dumb (but usually working) approach which is resetting the Accessibility configuration. Locate the file
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.universalaccess.plist and move it somewhere else (to desktop or some temporary directory). Log out and log back in. Better now? If yes, then adjust the other Accessibility settings as you like and it should be fine.
You can then delete that com.apple.universalaccess.plist file you moved to some temporary location.
If that didn't help, move it back into its original location as the problem will be elsewhere (some 3rd party application as twistofmatt suggests etc)

Thanks. I tried setting the bool to false and it was able to fix the issue. I had duet installed as well