Color picker doesn't work

Gpick (0.2.6) is not working anymore on my computer (Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS). When I click on "Pick color", I do not see the display around my mouse in the small box where it should be magnified. This box stays gray. When I pick a color (by pressing the space bar) it is always black (#000000).

I have downloaded Pick (2.0.2) but it does not work either.

I have also noticed here that Gpick should be able to provide color name but it never worked on my computer. Under Edit>Color dictionaries, it seems that we can add a color dictionary file. Do you know how it works?

Many thanks for your help!

EDIT: I'm running wayland.

~$ env|grep XDG|grep -e XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP -e XDG_SESSION_TYPE
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME

3 Answers

After a dialogue via comments, we found out that the colour picker Gpick (0.2.6)

• does not work in Wayland
• works in x11 (but with a regression: the magnified display in the small box of the app is no longer there)

You can check desktop environment and session type by the command

env|grep XDG|grep -e XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP -e XDG_SESSION_TYPE

Switching from Wayland to x11 solved most of the problems (see @sudodus comments).

It is possible to pick a color with Gpick but the small box still does not show anything.

Pick seems to work fine although the display of the app is kind of buggy.

I had the same issue on GNOME 3.32 with X11

In my case, however, I had desktop zoom enabled. Disabling desktop zoom fixed the issue. You can do this via the accessibility icon in the top panel - or by using a keyboard shortcut - the default for turning zoom on or off is Super+Alt+8