i searched an entire day for this problem, no workaround worked and I would like some fresh pair of eyes to take a look at this. I am using Android 3.2 and theme Holo.Light with ActionBar(important).

My layout xml:

```
  <AutoCompleteTextView
            android:id="@+id/autocompleteSearchTxt"
            android:layout_width="0dip"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_weight="0.52"
            android:textSize="@dimen/text_size_normal"
            android:hint="@string/search"
            android:textColor="@android:color/primary_text_light"
            android:textCursorDrawable="@null" />

```

In Android Manifest file: `android:theme="@style/Theme.Holo.Light.Workaround"`

In themes.xml file:

```
<style name="Theme.Holo.Light.Workaround" parent="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light">
   <item name="android:autoCompleteTextViewStyle">@style/AutoCompleteTextViewLight</item>
    <item name="android:dropDownItemStyle">@style/Widget.DropDownItemLight</item>
</style>

```

In styles.xml file:

```
  <style name="AutoCompleteTextViewLight" parent="@android:style/Widget.AutoCompleteTextView">
    <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/primary_text_light</item>
</style>
<style name="Widget.DropDownItemLight" parent="@android:style/Widget.DropDownItem">
    <item name="android:textColor">@android:color/primary_text_light</item>
</style>

```

Now here I tried with my own colors, red, blue...colors that would stand out.

The result is ... nothing. It changes nothing, when i write chars in the autocomplete, i can see it is completing as i go but the dropdown item text color is not seen at all. It's transparent, or white on white(on real device). 

I am not able to understand what i am doing wrong. Did someone resolved this problem before? Please any clues would be great. 
Thank you anyway.