Colors change when using the watch command within an ssh session

[mtjohnson47]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.5854]

WSL Version

2.4.13.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• [x] WSL 2
• [ ] WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2 in WSL, 6.8.0-60-generic on the ssh'd server

Distro Version

22.04 in WSL, 24.04 on the ssh'd server

Other Software

In WSL: watch from procps-ng 3.3.17 On the ssh'd server: watch from procps-ng 4.0.4

Repro Steps

1. Setup or otherwise gain access to an Ubuntu server.
2. Open Ubuntu WSL from the Microsoft store.
3. Run the command ssh user@address
4. Run the command watch date
5. Type Ctrl-C. The terminal color shades should now be different.
6. Type Ctrl-D to return to WSL. Note that the changed colors continue to be used.

Expected Behavior

Terminal colors should not change as a result of running commands on remote servers.

Actual Behavior

The colors changed in saturation, as shown here: https://youtu.be/5yBf6TcYMwE

Diagnostic Logs

WslLogs-2025-05-25_12-26-34.zip

[github-actions[bot]]

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Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

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[mtjohnson47]

WslLogs-2025-05-25_12-26-34.zip

[github-actions[bot]]

Diagnostic information

Issue was edited and new log file was found: https://github.com/user-attachments/files/20432028/WslLogs-2025-05-25_12-26-34.zip
Detected appx version: 2.4.13.0

[github-actions[bot]]

Diagnostic information

Detected appx version: 2.4.13.0

[OneBlue]

@mtjohnson47: WSL doesn't directly control the colors in the terminal, those are set by the programs you run. In this specific case I'm going to guess that the ctrl-c kills a program before it has time to restore the terminal colors.

You can dig deeper by running the programs causing this under strace if you want to see which one is not resetting the terminal.

Closing since this is not a WSL issue.