Disappearing background

Does anyone know whether the latest patch did anything to fix the intermittent disappearing text backgrounds.  Without the backgrounds, the text is completely unreadable.

Sometimes, this is just a result of VERY slow updating, and if I wait the backgrounds will appear and the screen will be readable.

Sometimes, no matter how long I wait, it does not appear.  I never saw this before 1.19.  I was holding off updating to 1.19a, as I am in the middle of a game.  But if a fixes this, then it is worth just tarting over.

Conversely, if this is not fixed, it is going to be very hard to try versions of the game.

Yours,

Joel