<p>This is likely to be related to the theme.  Geany does not specify what an active tab looks like (see <a href="https://github.com/geany/geany/blob/master/data/geany.css">geany.css</a>), so whatever the theme defines will be used.</p>

<p>On my Mint (Ubuntu based) system with GTK 3.18.9, the active tab is clearly defined with an out-of-the-box Geany.</p>

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