1249324 - "Powerline" font patching works differently (and poorly) in Firefox>=45 compared to every other Linux desktop app

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1245811

(Core :: Graphics: Text, defect)

Description

[Andreas Kloeckner]

Attachment: Bildschirmfoto von »2016-02-18 11-12-41«.png

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0 Iceweasel/45.0
Build ID: 20160214103951

Steps to reproduce:

I've got "DejaVu Sans Mono" installed on my system. When I ask Firefox to use it, it won't, as illustrated by the attached screenshot.

-- Extensions information
Name: Add-on Compatibility Reporter
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: Cookie Whitelist, With Buttons
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: Decentraleyes
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: Deutsch (DE) Language Pack locale
Location: /usr/lib/iceweasel/browser/extensions/[e-mail]
Package: iceweasel-l10n-de
Status: enabled

Name: Firefox Hello Beta
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: Google search link fix
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: HTTPS-Everywhere
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: It's All Text!
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: ScrapBook
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/{53A03D43-5363-4669-8190-99061B2DEBA5}.xpi
Status: enabled

Name: Standard theme
Location: /usr/lib/iceweasel/browser/extensions/{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}.xpi
Package: iceweasel
Status: enabled

Name: Textarea Cache
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/{578e7caa-210f-4967-a0d3-88fe5b59a39f}.xpi
Status: enabled

Name: Tree Style Tab
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: uBlock Origin
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: VimFx
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: wasavi
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: user-disabled

Name: WebDAV Launcher
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: Zotero
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

Name: ZotFile
Location: ${PROFILE_EXTENSIONS}/[e-mail]
Status: enabled

-- Plugins information
Name: Gnome Shell Integration
Location: /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libgnome-shell-browser-plugin.so
Package: gnome-shell
Status: enabled

Name: IcedTea-Web Plugin (using IcedTea-Web 1.6.2pre (1.6.1-4))
Location: /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/IcedTeaPlugin.so
Package: icedtea-7-plugin:amd64
Status: enabled

Name: iTunes Application Detector
Location: /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/librhythmbox-itms-detection-plugin.so
Package: rhythmbox-plugins
Status: enabled

Name: Shockwave Flash (11.2.202.559)
Location: /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
Status: enabled


-- Addons package information
ii  gnome-shell    3.18.3-3     amd64        graphical shell for the GNOME des
ii  icedtea-7-plug 1.6.1-4      amd64        web browser plugin based on OpenJ
ii  iceweasel      45.0~b5-1    amd64        Web browser based on Firefox
ii  iceweasel-l10n 1:45.0~b5-1  all          German language package for Icewe
ii  rhythmbox-plug 3.3-1        amd64        plugins for rhythmbox music playe

-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.4.0-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.utf8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages iceweasel depends on:
ii  debianutils               4.7
ii  fontconfig                2.11.0-6.3
ii  libasound2                1.1.0-1
ii  libatk1.0-0               2.18.0-1
ii  libc6                     2.21-8
ii  libcairo2                 1.14.6-1
ii  libdbus-1-3               1.10.6-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2          0.106-1
ii  libevent-2.0-5            2.0.21-stable-2+b1
ii  libffi6                   3.2.1-4
ii  libfontconfig1            2.11.0-6.3
ii  libfreetype6              2.6.1-0.1
ii  libgcc1                   1:5.3.1-8
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0        2.32.3-1.2
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.46.2-3
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.24.29-1
ii  libhunspell-1.3-0         1.3.3-3+b2
ii  libnspr4                  2:4.11-1
ii  libnss3                   2:3.21-1
ii  libpango-1.0-0            1.38.1-1
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.10.2-1
ii  libstartup-notification0  0.12-4
ii  libstdc++6                5.3.1-8
ii  libvpx3                   1.5.0-2
ii  libx11-6                  2:1.6.3-1
ii  libxcomposite1            1:0.4.4-1
ii  libxdamage1               1:1.1.4-2+b1
ii  libxext6                  2:1.3.3-1
ii  libxfixes3                1:5.0.1-2+b2
ii  libxrender1               1:0.9.9-2
ii  libxt6                    1:1.1.5-1
ii  procps                    2:3.3.11-3
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.8.dfsg-2+b1

Versions of packages iceweasel recommends:
ii  gstreamer1.0-libav         1.6.3-1
ii  gstreamer1.0-plugins-good  1.6.3-1

Versions of packages iceweasel suggests:
ii  fonts-lmodern          2.004.5-1
ii  fonts-stix [otf-stix]  1.1.1-4
ii  libcanberra0           0.30-2.1
ii  libgnomeui-0           2.24.5-3.1
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2       1.13.2+dfsg-4
pn  mozplugger             <none>

-- no debconf information

Comment 1

[marcino245]

Are you able to reproduce the issue with a clean profile?
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles

Comment 2

[Andreas Kloeckner]

Yep.

Comment 3

[Andreas Kloeckner]

A particularly irritating consequence of this is that (as visible in the screenshot) many monospaced fonts render as proportionally spaced.

Comment 4

[Andreas Kloeckner]

Just tried, this happens with:

- 45b5 (from Debian)
- 46a2 (from mozilla.org)
- 47a1 (from mozilla.org)

It's the amd64 build in each case.

Comment 5

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

This smells like a fontconfig issue.

Comment 6

[Andreas Kloeckner]

Now that you say that, I suddenly remembered. I followed this guide here:

https://github.com/powerline/powerline/blob/f8c45e95669971ca7eab57b8d60b6eb41d7093f5/docs/source/installation/linux.rst#fonts-installation

and installed a fontconfig configuration file:

https://gist.github.com/inducer/30acf5f470f0ea14c7fd

that injects a few symbols into nearly every fixed-width font under the sun. And Firefox appears to handle this font patching differently than every other Linux desktop app. FWIW, I've decided that I can live without those symbols, and things are back to normal for me. Thanks for the help in troubleshooting. I'll leave this (and the Debian bug) open since I feel the difference in font handling may yet be an issue that merits some attention. But at least the immediate Firefox usability concern is gone.

Comment 7

[Andreas Kloeckner]

https://github.com/powerline/fonts/issues/163

Comment 8

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

This looks like an example of bug 1245811: the <alias>...<prefer> construct used to insert the Powerline font is not being handled properly.