Closed Bug 1381255 Opened 7 years ago Closed 7 years ago

strange characters generated in text windows.

Categories

(Core :: Layout: Text and Fonts, defect, P3)

Product:
Core
Component:
Layout: Text and Fonts
Version:
54 Branch
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: grgoffe, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0 Build ID: 20170628145605 Steps to reproduce: I use the Nightly and the Beta and the released versions of FF. They are now all displaying this problem. Certain characters cause extra characters to be generated. I'm seeing accent acute, accent grave, cedilla and some others. This has been happening for a few weeks. I have been investigating my operating system settings, thinking that the problem is this operating system (Fedora 27 x86_64 (rawhide). I have found nothing there. The problem does appear to be Firefox related since it does not happen elsewhere. Actual results: Certain characters cause extra characters to be generated. I'm seeing accent acute, accent grave, cedilla and some others. Expected results: NO extra characters.
Please attach a screenshot and/or testcase.
Component: Untriaged → Layout: Text
Product: Firefox → Core
Ím trying to get this problem resolved but FF isńt trying very hard to help mė. Notice the special characters above the Ím and n (in isn't) and the e (me)?
Another part of the bug is that when I hold the shift key down and type several wordş the space bar is ignored so I have to let up on the shift key to get a space (note the cedilla under the s in words above).
It sounds like your system or desktop environment has somehow gotten switched to a different key-mapping (assuming you normally expect to use an English layout such as en-US), where some keys that on a standard English layout would generate punctuation marks (apostrophe, period, comma) are instead producing diacritics (acute accent, dot-above, cedilla-below).
Jonathan, Yes, I normally expect to use English. The locale command returns: locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8" LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8" LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8" LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8" LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8" LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8" LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8" LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8" LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8" LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8" LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8" LC_ALL= With Firefox, view-> text encoding says "unicode". I switch to "western" but that doesn't seem to last (
The problem appears to be happening with opera as well. I'try to write a bug for Fedora. Do you want me to post whatever I find here? Thanks, George..
I suspect this may not really be a bug at all, it's just that your keyboard layout has gotten switched (perhaps via a "shortcut" key combination that was inadvertently triggered at some point) and is not generating the characters you expect when you type. Assuming you're using the GNOME desktop, https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/keyboard-layouts.html.en might help you find how to reset to a standard English layout.
Priority: -- → P3
Jet, Thanks for your help. I don't use Gnome... I use KDE... and sometimes WindowMaker which also exhibits the same problem... I'll give gnome another shot... The last time I tried Gnome, it crashed... Just a few weeks ago... Sigh... Again, Thanks...
Jet, This problem seems to be gone with Gnome. Apparently there are several KDE bugs. I'll be writing a new bug report about this and the inability to update KDE settings due to crashing software. Sigh... Thanks to everyone who helped me with this bug. Best regards, George...
I'm going to close this, as there's not actually a mozilla bug here. Hope you're able to get your KDE issues sorted out!
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Jonathan, More info... I am a KDE user. The problem appears with multiple versions of FF. I started the Gnome desktop that you mentioned above. Did not see anything out of "the norm". I changed keyboards physically with NO change in behavior. With Gnome the problem doesn't appear to exist. What a PAINFUL experience this has been. I'll point the KDE folks to this bug. THANKS TONS FOR YOUR HELP. George...
I would like to resurect this bug since I'm seeing it on multiple window managers. KDE, WindowMaker, NOT Gnome for some odd reason. Somehow FF is generating these odd characters (didactics?). How can I find out how/why FF decides to generate these characters but no other software does this? ő Ím ş ą á ź == these are just a few of the characters I'm seeing
This still isn't a Firefox bug; it's your local (KDE or other) system settings. In KDE, for example, do you have a System Settings utility? In there, try checking the Input Devices / Keyboard / Layouts tab, and see what's installed/selected. I'm guessing there must be some kind of "international" keyboard layout installed, which is resulting in the various diacritics. And if the "Switching Policy" for layouts is set to Application (rather than, say, Global) that would explain why the issue shows up in Firefox but not in other programs.
Jonathan, Thanks for your response. I'll check with KDE but, how would something set in/by KDE affect WindowMaker? George...
Jonathan, I should say thanks for your response AND your patiencė George..
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