customize default colors via css

live view does not. even in incognito. var contrast stays black.

Usually when the live view does not match the customizer view, it's a caching issue.

Can you clear and disable all your caching or optimization plugin for now?

does disabling code snippets plugin remove the snippets from use?

Yes of course.

i have no caching or optimization plugins on the site. it happens when only generatepress premium is active (currently).

i've removed code snippets plugin completely. i've used firefox incognito and a virgin browser that's never seen the site. cleared my cache in my everyday browser (firefox). cleared my wordpress cache with wp cli. we reset our router even!

no joy.

i asked the host to look at it. they cleared caches but no change.

they tried changing the Contrast red to a hex color in the customizer, the site showed the changes.

Since that wasn't the issue, we then tried to remove that color designation in the color panels and change 'red' to a hex color in my function to see if it didn't like the named color, but now the Contrast color variable doesn't show up in my palette at all.

I just used the exact same code in a child theme and everything works:
https://www.screencast.com/t/2Luslgtj

Did you delete Contrast by any chance?

If so you would need to add it back and manually set the color.

The code would only work in a fresh install.