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June 28, 2023
Solved

Unable to switch variable modes

  • June 28, 2023
  • 28 replies
  • 7831 views

I set 4 color themes (variable modes) for my design in local variables but when I’m trying to switch them, 3 color themes are greyed out in the dropdown. Is it a bug or I’ve done something wrong?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Best answer by Josh

Hey all this could be due to the variables in your selection being on different versions with one version having access to fewer modes than the other one. If you update everything (variable collections, and make sure components using variables are published with the latest variable version), then all modes should become available for use.

Hope this helps. 🙂

28 replies

Sasch
June 29, 2023

Same for me/us. We’re using an Enterprise License and have the same disabled mode options. For us 3 out of 6 modes are disabled.

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Sofie_Katan1
New Participant
July 12, 2023

Also have the same issue, and same License

July 12, 2023

I’ve got the same issue on Enterprise but the mode is only disabled at page level, I can set it happily at frame and component level.

jackbrind
July 25, 2023

I’m getting the same issue with Professional licence. I would really like to know if I’m doing something wrong 🤔

Josh
JoshAnswer
Former Community Manager
July 25, 2023

Hey all this could be due to the variables in your selection being on different versions with one version having access to fewer modes than the other one. If you update everything (variable collections, and make sure components using variables are published with the latest variable version), then all modes should become available for use.

Hope this helps. 🙂

jackbrind
July 26, 2023

Hi @Josh, thank you for your reply.
Unfortunately, after having gone through every component to ensure that all of them were using the correct variables and checking the local variables in my design system file, publishing the updates and accepting the updates in my other design file, my dark theme is still greyed out. When switching a page to a dark theme in my design system file, this works perfectly, it’s just in files that use the library.

Would you happen to have any other suggestions? I know variables are in beta so is it worth submitting a bug?

Cheers, Jack.

Josh
Former Community Manager
July 26, 2023

Hey @jackbrind sorry to hear your still running into issues here. In this case yes I would encourage you to submit a bug report with all of these details. If possible please share any screenshots, recordings, and give edit access to support-share@figma.com. Someone from our support team should be able to take a closer look from there. I’ll also ping the variables team again on this to see if there might be something we’re missing.

Here’s the form you can use.
Submit a bug form →

Thanks! 😊

Thales_Ribeiro
July 26, 2023

For some reason the color modes are disabled when I’m trying to import color tokens from an outside library file.

Thales_Ribeiro
July 26, 2023

It only works for me when I detach the instance of my component. I made sure to have all color variables linked to the same system and up to date. Still getting grayed out

jamiegraydesign
July 31, 2023

Not solved. Most people are still having troubles with this. Ghetto software