Normal text is invisible when using beamer with notes and XeLaTeX

Question

I'm using beamer with xelatex to prepare a talk.

If I switch on notes on right I'm experiencing strange behaviour:

When using csqoutes in the title, all normal text afterwards becomes invisible (or white). The text selectable in the output pdf. Note that the text is also visible in the small preview on the note page.

This does not happen when using pdflatex or lualatex.

MWE:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage[autostyle=true,german=quotes]{csquotes}

\usepackage{pgfpages}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

\begin{document}
   \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{\enquote{Enqouted Title}}
    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{This is the second slide}
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
    \end{frame}
\end{document}

Update:

csqoutes is not the culprit. Seems to be a general problem when using xelatex and beamer with notes enabled.

New MWE:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{pgfpages}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

\begin{document}
    \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{First Slide Title}
        Here be text
    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{This is the second slide}
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
    \end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 1

The

\def\pgfsysdriver{pgfsys-dvipdfm.def}

trick kinda worked for me, but it totally messed up the position of my images in my presentation. So I decided to dig a little further and here is what I've found :

This is indeed a bug, and depending on the beamer theme you are using, the package pgfpages will override the behavior of the theme which is using :

\AtBeginSection{...}

but there is an easy workaround to set back the font color every time there is a new slide :

\makeatletter 
\def\beamer@framenotesbegin{% at beginning of slide
     \usebeamercolor[fg]{normal text}
      \gdef\beamer@noteitems{}% 
      \gdef\beamer@notes{}% 
}
\makeatother

Using this, you'll be able to set the font color back to theme's default color.

Hope this helps. Cheers !

Answer 2

The following solves the problem in the present example. However it is not a true solution. I only give this in order to show where the bugs are. I think the bugs are in a pgf driver pgfsys-dvipdfmx.def, which is used by XeTeX.

\def\pgfsysdriver{pgfsys-dvipdfm.def}
\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}
\begin{document}
    \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{First Slide Title}
        Here be text
    \end{frame}

    \begin{frame}
        \frametitle{This is the second slide}
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
    \end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 3

Official fix available!

This was a bug in the xetex-def package and has been fixed by Joseph Wright in a recent commit to its development branch.

As of 2021-01-20, the change is still pending being released in the xetex-def package on CTAN. Hence, simply copy xetex.def into the same folder as your .tex document you want to compile.

If you're from the future, you might instead try updating your xetex-def package. With MikTeX you can try doing so in the MiKTeX console under "Updates".