I encountered this issue while using Bonfire:

Tried to follow ivan but got a "Sorry, could not connect to the database. Please try again later and/or contact the instance operators" message.

The cycling of background colours is quite annoying. I don't think I have changed that setting but it has the appearance of drawing the screen in a default colour scheme and then redoing in whatever setting I probably have in my preferences.

@BonfireBuilders #bonfire_feedback