RE: Can't load any color themes in emacs 25

[Drew Adams]

> I've installed GNU Emacs 25.1.1 on ubuntu 14.04.
> The previous version is 24.3.1
>
> The default color scheme is great, but running load-theme for any
> installed theme does not give me the color scheme that I expect.
> *Messages* shows nothing of concern on startup. The background
> remains light.
>
> I would guess that some setting has a value that is forcing the
> background to a something close to white, (regardless of theme
> selection) but don't know where to look for it.

FYI (but this does not speak to your difficulty).

`load-theme' is not about color themes.  It is about custom themes.
(It is too bad that Emacs borrowed the feature idea, changed it
to something different, and gave it a too-similar name.)

See this page, about color themes and custom themes:
https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ColorThemes