#1941·eza

theme.yml detected via statx() but never opened/read (icons and colors silently ignored)

Author: ssaldana-devCreated Sep 13, 2026Updated Sep 14, 2026

Version: eza 0.23.5-2 (Arch Linux official extra repo build) OS: Arch Linux Terminal: kitty

Description With EZA_CONFIG_DIR explicitly set (and also tested with the default $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/eza location), a valid theme.yml file is detected by eza but none of its contents (icon overrides under filenames, or color overrides under filekinds) are ever applied. Output is identical to running eza with no theme.yml at all.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create ~/.config/eza/theme.yml:
yaml
   colourful: true
   filekinds:
     directory:
       foreground: Red
   filenames:
     "Cargo.toml":
       icon:
         glyph: ""
  1. export EZA_CONFIG_DIR="$HOME/.config/eza"
  2. touch ~/Cargo.toml
  3. eza --icons -l ~

Expected: directories shown in red, Cargo.toml shown with icon. Actual: default colors/icons, no override applied.

Evidence strace shows eza stats the file but never opens it for reading:

strace -f -s 256 -e trace=%file eza --icons -l ~ 2>&1 | grep theme
statx(AT_FDCWD, "/home/Sergio/.config/eza/theme.yml", AT_STATX_SYNC_AS_STAT, STATX_ALL, {stx_mask=STATX_ALL|STATX_MNT_ID, stx_attributes=0, stx_mode=S_IFREG|0644, stx_size=1774, ...}) = 0

No subsequent openat call for that path appears anywhere in the trace, suggesting the code path that checks theme.exists() never proceeds to actually load the file's contents.