Conky transparency isn't working in Mint 14

Question

I've setup conky on my laptop installation of linux mint 14 (cinnamon), conky works except for the font transparency. I'm using:

xftalpha 0.5

in .conkyrc. But whichever value I use, the transparency doesn't change. I've also tried changing the own_window_type. Doesn't make any difference unfortunately. Other people with similar setups report that it works for them. Can anyone guide to where the problem is?

I guess I shouldn't post my complete conky configuration, it's maybe a little too much. But the most important parts are:

xftfont sans:size=10
use_xft yes
xftalpha 0.5
update_interval 1.0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_type desktop
double_buffer yes
no_buffers yes

Answer 1

First make sure you are not using any ${font} or ${color} commands in the TEXT section of your .conkyrc. The transparency seems to break if you specify font options in any way other than the xft commands in the options section. You also need to specify the default color and a few more options, try this:

alignment top_right
update_interval 1.0
default_color 000000
default_outline_color 000000
default_shade_color 000000
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 50
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_type desktop
use_xft yes
xftfont sans:size=60
xftalpha 0.2
double_buffer yes
no_buffers yes

TEXT
THIS IS TRANSPARENT!