diff --git a/pyfpdb/fpdb.pyw b/pyfpdb/fpdb.pyw
index b5501e35..c6d318a2 100755
--- a/pyfpdb/fpdb.pyw
+++ b/pyfpdb/fpdb.pyw
@@ -187,6 +187,22 @@ class fpdb:
         tabBox.pack_start(tabLabel, False)
         eventBox.add(tabBox)
 
+        # fixme: force background state to fix problem where STATE_ACTIVE
+        # tab labels are black in some gtk themes, and therefore unreadable
+        # This behaviour is probably a bug in libwimp.dll or pygtk, but
+        # need to force background to avoid issues with menu labels being
+        # unreadable
+        #
+        #   gtk.STATE_ACTIVE is a displayed, but not selected tab
+        #   gtk.STATE_NORMAL is a displayed, selected, focussed tab
+        #   gtk.STATE_INSENSITIVE is an inactive tab
+        # Insensitive/base is chosen as the background colour, because 
+        # although not perfect, it seems to be the least instrusive.
+        baseNormStyle = eventBox.get_style().base[gtk.STATE_INSENSITIVE]
+        if baseNormStyle:
+            print baseNormStyle
+            eventBox.modify_bg(gtk.STATE_ACTIVE, gtk.gdk.color_parse(str(baseNormStyle)))
+
         if nb.get_n_pages() > 0:
             tabButton = gtk.Button()