background color is grey

How to fix it?

In .vimrc

call plug#begin('~/.vim/plugged')
    Plug 'altercation/vim-colors-solarized'
call plug#end()

let g:solarized_termcolors=256
set t_Co=256
syntax enable
set background=dark
colorscheme solarized

Depends on your terminal, try to disable "g:solarized_termcolors=256" first.

Then background ok, but only 16 colors available; this is bad. https://github.com/romainl/flattened#256-colors

I had the same issue.. Things to take care of:

1. I have iterm2, so I installed solarized theme for it & make sure it's using xterm-256color terminal type.
2. Do this in your .vimrc set background=dark let g:solarized_termcolors=16 "this is what fixed it for me colorscheme solarized You're done !

thanks @PezCoder , but I think below to improve your code:

  set background=dark
  let g:solarized_termcolors=256 "this is what fixed it for me
  colorscheme solarized

For others that come across this, here's a better fix that does not degrade the colors:

set background=dark
let g:solarized_termtrans = 1 " This gets rid of the grey background
colorscheme solarized

none of them is working for me. however Light theme is working.

I am using SpaceVIm configuration with Solarized theme but background keeps grey, Please help me

"t g:solarized_termtrans = 1" means transparent?

if so, changing the value can change mccvim's background color.

I had this issue also but I also had lines from above comment in my .vimrc though they were inside if !has('gui') ... endif block. I thought that gui flag is set to true only if I run vim GUI but actually it says that GUI support has been compiled into vim binary. To detect that vim GUI is running gui_running flag must be checked. See https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/1481

let g:solarized_termcolors=256
set t_Co=256
syntax enable
set background=dark
colorscheme solarized

Worked for me, for both dark and light theme.

I still don't see the bluish color with the following config: