Shell with FlyoutBackgroundColor looks weird on Windows

[heikow10]

Description

The Flyout menu looks buggy or inconsistent in Windows apps when FlyoutBackgroundColor is set to certain colors.

This becomes especially noticeable when creating an app that does not support Light and Dark mode. In such a case, the app should appear consistently, regardless of the Windows system theme.

However, the color of the burger button and the title text automatically changes based on the Windows system theme. This can result in low contrast or hard-to-read text when FlyoutBackgroundColor is customized.

The problem becomes even more apparent when a FlyoutHeader with a different background color is defined — the background color appears visually interrupted by the header area.
It’s unclear whether the title row of the Flyout should inherit the FlyoutBackgroundColor or not.

With the customized colors it looks good in Dark Mode, But it looks stupid in Light Mode,

Steps to Reproduce

1. create new .NET MAUI App
2. remove all Styles and Colors
3. add at least one ShellContent item in Shell
4. set Shell.BackgroundColor, Shell.TitleColor and FlyoutBackgroundColor of the Shell
5. define a FlyoutHeader

Link to public reproduction project repository

https://github.com/heikow10/MAUIFlyoutBackgroundColorBug

Version with bug

9.0.111 SR11.1

Is this a regression from previous behavior?

Not sure, did not test other versions

Last version that worked well

No response

Affected platforms

Windows

Affected platform versions

Windows SDK 10.0.19041.0

Did you find any workaround?

no workaround known so far

Relevant log output

[jfversluis]

Duplicate of/related to #9736?

[heikow10]

Duplicate of/related to #9736?

In my opinion it is not related because I don't want/need to set the background color via a Style.
It works for me to change the background color. My issue is only related to the appearance of the title bar of the Flyout menu.

[AndreasReitberger]

Looks familiar to my problem: #32082

[MitchBomcanhao]

if you don't want to support themes, should you not be specifying an app theme and sticking with it? it seems you're allowing the app theme to be set by the system but then also hardcoding background colors, which naturally isn't going to work.

[Ahamed-Ali]

This issue has been validated in Visual Studio 2026 Insiders 11111.16 with .NET MAUI versions 9.0.0, 9.0.82 & 9.0.120. It is reproducible on the Windows platform.

[bronteq]

During app startup you can force a theme to use: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/user-interface/system-theme-changes?view=net-maui-9.0#set-the-current-user-theme