Section Color does not stay

[bokamm]

Describe the bug
After it did not work on the production website, I made a clean install of OJS 3.4.0.5 in MAMP and activated the Immersion theme to see if I could adjust the section colors here. I can adjust section colors per issue and save but they always return to the standard black for all sections (production site and MAMP). Picking colors for the journal description and announcements does work.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to 'Issues'
2. Select Issue, click 'Edit'
3. On 'Issue Data' scroll down to 'Color Picker'
4. Select colors for sections
5. Click 'Save'
6. Check journal frontend > all sections black
7. Check backend: All sections black under 'Color Picker'

Expected behavior
The section colors should reflect the selection upon saving.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: macOS 14.4.1 (23E224)
• Browser: Chrome, Safari, Firefox]

Additional context
The journal uses two languages, English (default) and Japanese. I noticed that I have to upload the logo and issue covers separately for each language to correctly display. May this interfere with saving the section colors?

[bokamm]

I switched off the second locale, to only use English, but this did not change the problem. There are no entries in error logs (at least I could not find any). However, I get this error in console:
The specified value '' does not conform to the required format. The format is "#rrggbb" where rr, gg, bb are two-digit hexadecimal numbers.

See screenshot:

[asmecher]

Thanks, @bokamm! @Vitaliy-1, adding to your list to consider.

[jpmmartins]

We are facing the same problem, and the error we're seeing in the logs is the following, it might not be related to the problem though:

[Thu Jan 02 14:25:32.147488 2025] [proxy_fcgi:error] [pid 5891:tid 5891] [client 172.18.0.6:37090] AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Deprecated:  json_decode(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($json) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/lib/pkp/classes/db/DAO.php on line 342; PHP message: PHP Deprecated:  unserialize(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($data) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/lib/pkp/classes/db/DAO.php on line 347; PHP message: PHP Deprecated:  json_decode(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($json) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/lib/pkp/classes/db/DAO.php on line 342; PHP message: PHP Deprecated:  unserialize(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($data) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/lib/pkp/classes/db/DAO.php on line 347; PHP message: PHP Deprecated:  json_decode(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($json) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/lib/pkp/classes/db/DAO.php on line 342; PHP message: PHP Deprecated:  unserialize(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($data) of type string is deprecated in /var/www/html/lib/pkp/classes/db/DAO.php on line 347', referer: https://ojs-usb.ddev.site/index.php/k_ON/submissions

If you have access to the database you can set the values with

INSERT INTO `issue_settings` (`issue_id`, `locale`, `setting_name`, `setting_value`) VALUES ('396', '', 'immersionSectionColor', '{\"9\":\"#457a93\",\"5\":\"#780116\"}');