When I invert my screen colors, why does it un-invert after a couple seconds?

I’m trying to invert my screen for better reading at night. These two commands both work for a couple seconds, and then it goes back to normal.

xrandr-invert-colors

xcalib -invert -alter

What keeps the dark colors from "sticking"?

I’ve had this happen on several different computers running several different Linux distros, so it's fairly widespread. But they’ve all been minimalist setups with just a window manager an no desktop environment.

That said, said this odd thing happened: First, I found that it does stick on one of my machines. Then the computer it was working on stopped working, and a different one started working fine. No relevant config changes as far as I know.

Solution 1:

Stumbled on the solution today: redshift interferes. It updates the screen color every few seconds, resetting the inversion each time. Luckily now that inverting works I don't need it!