Closed Bug 1721824 Opened 3 years ago Closed 2 years ago

Firefox uses generic font instead the font that is used in websites

Categories

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

Product:
Core
Component:
Layout: Text and Fonts
Version:
Firefox 90
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: alfa8link, Unassigned)

References

(Regression)

Details

(Keywords: regression)

Attachments

(5 files)

reporter's zip of screenshots
6.38 MB, application/zip
Details
maybe a testcase?
608 bytes, text/html
Details
Test 1.jpg
245.38 KB, image/jpeg
Details
Test 2.zip
527.92 KB, application/zip
Details
Test 3 - Fonts.jpg
68.02 KB, image/jpeg
Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:90.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/90.0

Steps to reproduce:

Your contributor jscher2000 asked me to report the problem as a bug report. My English is not perfect, but I hope you'll understand what happened:

The problem came with the new version 90.0.1. There are some websites I visit every day, and after installing new version of FF I noticed that the fonts used in websites are different than it was before. Some websites are breaking apart and doesn't look like they did before, or like they look in other major browsers right now.

Actual results:

Examples:
http://www.alterego.co.rs/_knjigovodstvo/aktuelno.html
https://www.arrowheadpride.com/

I went to the "Settings" option and saw that my FF is set to show Times New Roman 16 as default font, but if I go to "Advanced" I can see that the checkbox on "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above" option is ON. So websites should be shown not by default font, but the font used in websites. But if I turn that option OFF, than I can see websites like it should be, like it was before new version, and like it's shown in other major browsers. However, it's not the permanent solution because some other websites behave differently. I guess it's some kind of problem with new version of FF.

Note: Same thing happend a couple of weeks or months ago with one of previous FF versions, but that was fixed just day or two later with another new version. It looks like we have simmilar problem right now.

Expected results:

Your contributor jscher2000 solved the problem by asking me to do this:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.
(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste gfx.e10s.font-list.shared and pause while the list is filtered.
(3) Double-click the preference to switch the value from true to false.
I suspect that won't take effect until the next time you quit and restart Firefox.

It actually solved the problem and after this websites look normal and as they should look. But it's just temporary solution because everybody else should do the same routine to get the proper results.

I hope that you have the real solution for this problem and I'll be glad to contribute in any way possible. Firefox is my favourite and only browser for more than 20 years because it's the best in the market.

Thanx in advance and all the best to all of you guys!!

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::CSS Parsing and Computation' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Component: Untriaged → CSS Parsing and Computation
Product: Firefox → Core
Component: CSS Parsing and Computation → Layout: Text and Fonts
Flags: needinfo?(jfkthame)

We should probably at least figure out why shared font list causes the behavior change.

Severity: -- → S2
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Priority: -- → P3
Regressed by: 1694174
Has Regression Range: --- → yes

Hi Dragan - sorry that this has sat for a while. Would you mind testing if it's still an issue for you? (with about:config preference gfx.e10s.font-list.shared restored to its default value, which should be true)

For what it's worth, I visited one of the sites that you linked, https://www.arrowheadpride.com/ , and the site's fonts seem to be loading just fine on my system. I also tried loading that site in Firefox 90 on Windows 10 and Windows 7 (trying to match your setup from comment 0), using a brand-new Firefox user profile, and the font seemed to load properly there as well. So there may be an additional variable that I'm missing on my end to reproduce this.

But in any case, it would be great to know if this is still something that you can reproduce or not - thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)
Regressions: 1720647
See Also: → 1720647
No longer regressions: 1720647

(shot in the dark: jfkthame, do you know if bug 1716433 would have potentially fixed this?)

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #4)

(shot in the dark: jfkthame, do you know if bug 1716433 would have potentially fixed this?)

Never mind, that wouldn't have fixed it -- on closer inspection, I see that that bug's fix was uplifted to 90, so the affected users here would've already had that patch.

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #3)

Hi Dragan - sorry that this has sat for a while. Would you mind testing if it's still an issue for you? (with about:config preference gfx.e10s.font-list.shared restored to its default value, which should be true)

For what it's worth, I visited one of the sites that you linked, https://www.arrowheadpride.com/ , and the site's fonts seem to be loading just fine on my system. I also tried loading that site in Firefox 90 on Windows 10 and Windows 7 (trying to match your setup from comment 0), using a brand-new Firefox user profile, and the font seemed to load properly there as well. So there may be an additional variable that I'm missing on my end to reproduce this.

But in any case, it would be great to know if this is still something that you can reproduce or not - thanks!

Hi Daniel,

Unfortunately, the problem still exists and nothing changed with new versions of FF. If I want to see fonts in a way that should be, I still have to keep the "false" value for gfx.e10s.font-list.shared. I would like to send you some capture images of https://www.arrowheadpride.com/ website (if possible!), and show you the difference depending if the value is true or false, so you could judge for yourself, even if you believe it's the same. Trust me, it's not, at least for me and my FF!

Anyway, thank you for contacting me, and for trying to fix this persistent bug after such a long time!

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

Thank you for testing that. Would you mind testing a fresh Firefox user-profile as well? That will help us get closer to knowing what the key factor is, in causing this issue. (Whether it's something specific to your current Firefox user-profile, vs. something specific to your system.)

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles#w_manage-profiles-when-firefox-is-open for more on how to create a new profile -- essentially you just go to the special page about:profiles, and use the buttons there to create a new Firefox profile and launch a window in that profile, and then see if you can reproduce the issue there.

(Note, your new Firefox profile will automatically become the default, so once you're done testing you'll want to return to about:profiles and click the "Set as default" button for your original profile.)

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #7)

Thank you for testing that. Would you mind testing a fresh Firefox user-profile as well? That will help us get closer to knowing what the key factor is, in causing this issue. (Whether it's something specific to your current Firefox user-profile, vs. something specific to your system.)

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles#w_manage-profiles-when-firefox-is-open for more on how to create a new profile -- essentially you just go to the special page about:profiles, and use the buttons there to create a new Firefox profile and launch a window in that profile, and then see if you can reproduce the issue there.

(Note, your new Firefox profile will automatically become the default, so once you're done testing you'll want to return to about:profiles and click the "Set as default" button for your original profile.)

Another (fresh) profile - same issue! Nothing changes. Font looks different, some special carracters like |, [, ],... become some serbian letters like Š, Č, Đ,... I tried the same thing on different PC and the result was the same. It's not only on this computer. So that's why I think it's a real bug. I didn't notice that kind of problems on different browsers (Chrome, Opera, Edge)...

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

OK, thanks for testing that. If you have any sort of special configuration on both machines that you can think of, that would be helpful as well, to help explain why you're able to reproduce it and we aren't able to (not yet at least).

I'm not sure if jfkthame (our font/text expert) might already have ideas about what's going on here, but any additional clues you can provide would be helpful - thanks!

(In reply to Dragan from comment #8)

Another (fresh) profile - same issue! Nothing changes. Font looks different, some special carracters like |, [, ],... become some serbian letters like Š, Č, Đ,...

Ohh.... this is really strange, but I wonder if it is somehow linked with running a localized OS version. What language is your Windows using?

Please go to about:support, find the "Internationalization & Localization" section, and attach copy the details from there so we can see what the settings are -- thank you.

Flags: needinfo?(jfkthame)

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #9)

OK, thanks for testing that. If you have any sort of special configuration on both machines that you can think of, that would be helpful as well, to help explain why you're able to reproduce it and we aren't able to (not yet at least).

I'm not sure if jfkthame (our font/text expert) might already have ideas about what's going on here, but any additional clues you can provide would be helpful - thanks!

I really cannot recall of anything special with my configuration of FF. I'm from Serbia, but my FF instalation is on english language with many default options, and the second machine is on my job, so it's even more default and usual. Some bookmarks, themes, a few favourite preferences, a couple of add-ons, and that's it! Nothing really special!

It would be great if you could give me some e-mail address, so I could send you the photos where you could see the differences between the true and false option, and between FF and other browsers. Maybe you could find the problem more easily. Anyway, I hope you'll find the solution soon. It's been 8 months since I found the problem, and in the meantime I almost forgot what happened before. Of course, all that time my FF is on the "false" value for gfx.e10s.font-list.shared, so the websites that I visit are with correct font intepretation!

(In reply to Jonathan Kew (:jfkthame) from comment #10)

(In reply to Dragan from comment #8)

Another (fresh) profile - same issue! Nothing changes. Font looks different, some special carracters like |, [, ],... become some serbian letters like Š, Č, Đ,...

Ohh.... this is really strange, but I wonder if it is somehow linked with running a localized OS version. What language is your Windows using?

Please go to about:support, find the "Internationalization & Localization" section, and attach copy the details from there so we can see what the settings are -- thank you.

Windows is also in english. I like everything in english. Here is what you ask:

Internationalization & Localization
Application Settings
Requested Locales ["en-US"]
Available Locales ["en-US"]
App Locales ["en-US"]
Regional Preferences ["en-US"]
Default Locale "en-US"
Operating System
System Locales ["sr-Latn-RS","en-US","sr-Cyrl-RS"]
Regional Preferences ["sr-Latn-RS"]

https://we.tl/t-5k19gg1OZp

Please, download the provided link, put the same photos together and compare for yourself. This is from just one website, but the same thing is everywhere if the value is "true". Hope it will help you.

More info today:
I did some testing on another three computers, and the bug still exists, but not with serbian letters Š, Č, Đ instead of |, [, ],... That is the issue only on my local machine right now. But the main problem with fonts still exists. I could say there are some improvements with newer versions of FF, things are not falling apart like it was before, but some websites are not shown with the main font like it should be.

I guess it’s very hard for regular person to recognize the problem with fonts because regular person don’t have anything to compare with, and they cannont see the difference. But I am not the regular person, my hobby is web design, and I need to see every detail of my work and check the compability with every major browser. I believe that the problem can be noticed only on websites that are not in Times New Roman, which is default FF font. Somehow, if the website font is, let’s say Calibri, FF still wants to use default Times New Roman, and the site is not like it should be. But it’s just my theory!

It’s definitelly not the problem with my Windows, settings or anything else. Everything was working just fine until FF released update 90.0.1 eight months ago. After that update my personal website suddenly became different, and I got serious headache trying to find out what is the problem. But when I saw that the bug exists in other websites too, like american Arrowhead Pride which is our example (without possibility that serbian language cause any problems there!), I found out that it’s not the problem with my design or computer, but with FF itself. Everything became even clearer when I compared the situation with other major browsers, which were working 100% correct, showing the font that should be the primary option.

I hope you find this info useful, and finally find out where is the bug. Meanwhile I will continue to use „false“ value to get the „true“ look of the websites that I make or visit. If you need some more info, I’ll be glad to help if I can! Good luck!

(In reply to Dragan from comment #13)

https://we.tl/t-5k19gg1OZp

Please, download the provided link, put the same photos together and compare for yourself. This is from just one website, but the same thing is everywhere if the value is "true". Hope it will help you.

Here's that link as an attachment. (Where possible, we strongly prefer posting testcases / screenshots / etc. as attachments directly on Bugzilla, since third party hosting services may have variable levels of security/trustworthiness/reliability.)

(In reply to Dragan from comment #14)

More info today:
I did some testing on another three computers, and the bug still exists, but not with serbian letters Š, Č, Đ instead of |, [, ],... That is the issue only on my local machine right now

That's interesting! it would be great to track down what the relevant factor is in triggering that issue.

But the main problem with fonts still exists.

So just to be clear, I think that issue is what's shown in the #3 testcase in the attached zip -- I can see that we're using a different font in your True3.jpg vs. False3.jpg screenshots there. I find that difference easiest to see on the capital letter "R" (e.g. at the end of the header "Former Packers WR" near the middle of the screenshot) -- the bottom-right "foot" of the R looks more bubbly/curvy in your "True3.jpg" screenshot, whereas it has a straight/angular foot in "False3.jpg".

I'm not able to reproduce this difference locally (with a pretty "vanilla" Windows 10 installation), so there's still some yet-to-be-discovered factor that's involved with making the issue reproducible for you but not for me.

One thing that would be good to check: could you use Firefox's devtools to see what font Firefox reports as actually using on the affected element, in a gfx.e10s.font-list.shared=true vs. gfx.e10s.font-list.shared=false configurations? To do that, you can right-click some piece of text that you've noticed differing, and then choose "Inspect", and then resize the rightmost pane of the 3-pane inspector layout (if necessary) so that you can see its "Fonts" header (it'll be among Layout|Computed|Changes|Compatibility|Fonts|Animations); and click "Fonts. That should show you "Fonts used: [...]", and that's the interesting thing to report back if you could.

Thanks!

In my case locally, I'm seeing us use Arial on the text in question at that part of the website. (The site is specifying font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;, and apparently I don't have Helvetica available locally, and Arial is the replacement that Firefox chooses on my Win10 system. For me, Firefox seems to use Arial for this text, regardless of my gfx.e10s.font-list.shared value.)

Attached file maybe a testcase? —

Here's a simple HTML file that might be a testcase for this issue (I'm curious to hear back if it reproduces the issue!)

This is an extremely-minimized version of the https://www.arrowheadpride.com/ site, with just some text that has the same values for font-related CSS properties.

Dragan, could you let us know if you're seeing different rendering on this testcase depending on your gfx.e10s.font-list.shared preference value? (If so, it'd be great to know what font(s) we report as using, from the UI described at the end of comment 16, though I suspect it'd be the same fonts as those at the actual arrowheadpride.com site.)

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

From looking at the screenshots, I'm pretty sure one factor involved here is bug 1716433. The site calls for font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif, and Dragan apparently has a Helvetica font installed (which is not standard on Windows -- it may have come from some other software package, or been separately downloaded/installed sometime in the past).

Bug 1716433 comment 2 discusses how the Firefox behavior here has changed: previously, the substitution of Arial for Helvetica was always applied, but with the new font-list architecture this is done only if Helvetica is not found.

Setting gfx.windows-font-substitutes.always to true in about:config (and then quitting/restarting Firefox) should restore the older behavior, and result in Arial being used.

A remaining question is why the odd character substitutions such as [ ] becoming Č Đ happen when the Helvetica font is used. I suppose there's some chance that might be related to bug 1759891, for which a patch just landed, so let's see if that helps at all.

Another possibility is that the Helvetica font that's present is actually a legacy font with these odd substitutions, which look like the sort of things that were sometimes seen in pre-Unicode systems when adapted for non-Western European markets. I wonder if there's some ancient "Helvetica" font installed, perhaps one that shipped with an old Serbian software product or even something like a printer, and that's being found because it has the standard Helvetica name despite having remapped characters.

Dragan, could you look in the Windows font list and see if you have a Helvetica font installed? What version and filename does it have? (This should be available to view in the Settings > Personalization > Fonts window, I believe. At the bottom of the font preview, there's a display of metadata that includes filename and version details; see https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/103617-preview-fonts-windows-10-a.html.)

Sorry guys, had to work and didn't have time to do some more testing. During the weekend I'll try to do whatever you ask, but you should know that I can do some design work, but I'm very thin in developing things. Not my area definitely, but I'll do my best to understand and do what you ask me to do.

Also, sorry for using third party hosting service, but I didn't know (see) how to attach file here direrctly!? Maybe i'm too old and don't see that good anymore. Now I see the button for attaching files up on this page, so I guess I can do that there!? Sorry again!

Also I can tell you that I have installed more than 1000 fonts in my computer. It was the package for web designers, so I definitely have Helvetica font here. Give me some more time and I'll check the version and everything else you wanted me to test.

Before I do some testing, let me ask you a few questions! Maybe the questions are not very smart, but I am trying to find some logic in this:

  1. For the last 8 months I am using the "false" value for gfx.e10s.font-list.shared and everything is working just fine. When I compare with other browsers, there are no differences, every website (no matter what language or font is used) looks just the same to me. Maybe some tiny dfferences in line thickness and stuff like that, but it's normal and expected. I don't understand why default value for gfx.e10s.font-list.shared is not "false" because everybody could get default FF with normal appearance of websites? I guess there is logical explanation, and maybe some other things are affected, but for the last 8 months with "false" value I didn't notice anything wrong! On the contrary, everything is workig just fine, and I almost forgot what happened 8 months before.

  2. In SETTINGS / LANGUAGE AND APPEARANCE / FONTS AND COLORS / ADVANCED there is checkbox "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above". I did some experiments, but I didn't notice any difference whether the box is checked, or not!? It's like that option didn't work during my testing.

  3. Talking again about SETTINGS / LANGUAGE AND APPEARANCE / FONTS AND COLORS / ADVANCED "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above", for me the logical thing would be that FF always, by default, shows the webpages in the way they are, and only if user choose so, to check the box and make FF to use generic (default) fonts instead of original. For me, it could be the best solution to avoid the problems like this. Of course, it would be necessary for that option to make any difference and work depending if the box is checked.

Sorry again if my questions are not very bright, but I would really like to see this bug gone for good! Give me some more time, and I'll see what can I do with tests that you asked me to do. Thanx again!

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

(In reply to Dragan from comment #20)

Sorry guys, had to work and didn't have time to do some more testing.
[...]
Now I see the button for attaching files up on this page, so I guess I can do that there!? Sorry again!

No worries; your bug report & your continued help here is appreciated! And, I'm glad you've found the file-attachment section; I know Bugzilla user-experience is not always the best. :)

  1. For the last 8 months I am using the "false" value for gfx.e10s.font-list.shared and everything is working just fine. [...] I don't understand why default value for gfx.e10s.font-list.shared is not "false" because everybody could get default FF with normal appearance of websites?

In short: the "false" value represents an old/inefficient configuration, whereas "true" represents a newly-implemented & more-efficient configuration. (In theory the two should behave the same, but with "true" reducing memory usage. Though there are a few cases where the behavior intentionally changed, as Jonathan noted. And there may also be cases where we changed behavior unintentionally, which this bug might be a case of.)

  1. In SETTINGS / LANGUAGE AND APPEARANCE / FONTS AND COLORS / ADVANCED there is checkbox "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above". I did some experiments, but I didn't notice any difference whether the box is checked, or not!? It's like that option didn't work during my testing.

Let's try to avoid going too far into side-conversations on this bug report, so that the thread of investigating-the-core-issue doesn't get too confusing to follow. :)

But in any case: it's not-unusual for that checkbox to not noticably break the web too much, if sites are well designed to have good generic fallback fonts (particularly if the sites' chosen generic fallback fonts happen to already be what you're using).

You should probably notice big differences with that box checked/unchecked at e.g. https://fonts.google.com/ or other sites that use exotic fonts, though.

  1. for me the logical thing would be that FF always, by default, shows the webpages in the way they are, and only if user choose so, to check the box and make FF to use generic (default) fonts instead of original.

I think that's essentially what we intend to do (and it is indeed what happens on my system, and I suspect it's usually what happens on your system as well, though you seem to be hitting some interesting edge cases. Hopefully following up on Jonathan's notes/questions in comment 19 will get us closer to an answer. :) )

OK guys, no more logic, let's get some testing:-)

Attached image Test 1.jpg —

Depending of the value (false or true), we can see the difference in fonts that are being used.

(In reply to Daniel Holbert [:dholbert] from comment #18)

Created attachment 9269338 [details]
maybe a testcase?

Here's a simple HTML file that might be a testcase for this issue (I'm curious to hear back if it reproduces the issue!)

This is an extremely-minimized version of the https://www.arrowheadpride.com/ site, with just some text that has the same values for font-related CSS properties.

Dragan, could you let us know if you're seeing different rendering on this testcase depending on your gfx.e10s.font-list.shared preference value? (If so, it'd be great to know what font(s) we report as using, from the UI described at the end of comment 16, though I suspect it'd be the same fonts as those at the actual arrowheadpride.com site.)

I did some testing and the difference is even more obvious. In one case FF uses Arial, and in other Helvetica!

Attached file Test 2.zip —
Attached image Test 3 - Fonts.jpg —

About the test 3, unfortunately I am on Windows 8.1 and I don't know how to find fonts metadata in that case. Maybe you can guide me, but in the meantime you can see that I have installed more than one Helvetica font, some of them are for local market (cyrilic, with Yugoslavia letters,...)

Maybe that explain some things, but not everything. If portals in Serbia have some special characters, websites from America don't, but there is still problem with different look. And the biggest question - why FF sees Arial in one case, and Helvetica in other, depending if it's true, or false?

That's it guys, hope that you have some answers now, but if you don't, just give me another job to do! Until our final victory:-)

(In reply to Dragan from comment #26)

Maybe that explain some things, but not everything. If portals in Serbia have some special characters, websites from America don't, but there is still problem with different look. And the biggest question - why FF sees Arial in one case, and Helvetica in other, depending if it's true, or false?

Looks like Jonathan addressed the Helvetica-vs-Arial thing in comment 19 -- that was an intentional behavior change as part of this feature, and the default pref value (i.e. true) makes us honor the website's requested font more-often (using Helvetica in this case, where previously [and with the pref set to False] we'd substitute Arial instead.)

It's interesting/odd that Chrome is not honoring the website's request, though. In Jonathan's notes on this behavior in bug 1716433 comment 2, it sounds like we thought other browsers were doing roughly the same thing (but this seems like a case where Chrome is rejecting your Helvetica font and swapping in Arial instead, based on your Chrome screenshots in your original zip).

That's it guys, hope that you have some answers now, but if you don't, just give me another job to do! Until our final victory:-)

I think the only unresolved thing now is the [ ] substitutions. As Jonathan said, we may've just landed a fix on Nightly (bug 1759891) that could help there - could you try downloading a Nightly build of Firefox at https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/#nightly and see if that substitution problem still happens in that build? (Note: nightly uses a separate profile [preferences/history/cookies/etc.] from regular Firefox, so no need to worry about it messing up your regular Firefox data.)

Severity: S2 → S3

I tried Nightly on two computers and... nothing changes! Everything stays the same, with the bug affecting the fonts! No problem solved.

I didn't have enough time and chance to do testing on more different computers and configurations. But I believe that my previous testings are enough to get the relevant picture about the bug. Just for the record:

  • My personal machine is on Windows 8.1, and the other three on my job are on Windows 10. Every computer uses the latest version of FF, but the testing were made before too, on different FF versions.

  • The problem was bigger in the beginning eight months earlier, and the fonts were so different that some websites literally were falling appart. If the problem was "only" with this Helvetica-Arial mixing, maybe even I would't notice the difference. But it was so obvious that I had to report the bug. Temporary solution with false-true values was "life saving" for me. So, right now the problem is not so big and obvious, but still exists. Some of the previous versions partially helped.

  • Every one of my computers had the same process of instalation, and the package of 1000+ fonts is the same on every machine. But the problem with [, ], Š, Đ, characters exists only on two computers - on mine personal with Win 8.1, and only one of the three on the job!? I really don't understand how is that possible, but trust me - it's possible:-)

  • If the value is "false", everything is just fine on every computer, no problem with the characters, fonts are looking the same everywhere, and in comparation with other browsers too!

Thanks for checking that; I guess bug 1759891 didn't help here then.

I'm glad the problem isn't as big as it was 8 months ago (presumably the bigger pieces there were other bugs that we've fixed since then). Also, RE the "Helvetica-Arial mixing": to reiterate, it seems that this particular behavior-change (the current Nightly behavior) is intentional, per comment 19 second paragraph.

So I think the only remaining unexpected/unexplained issue here is the [, ], Š, Đ substitutions that you're seeing on two machines. If you feel up to the task, perhaps you could try to come up with a reduced testcase that demonstrates that issue on your affected systems? E.g. maybe this data URL is sufficient to trigger it, if you copy and paste this into your URL bar in a new tab and hit enter:

data:text/html,<!DOCTYPE html><div style="font-family:Helvetica">[] |</div>

(This is expected to just look like [] |, rendered in Helvetica, but I'm guessing that on your system it might render those other weird characters instead.)

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

Daniel, sorry for the late answer, but here we are now. The answer is yes, when I paste the data URL I don't get [] |, but instead I see local letters ŠČĐ. Of course, when I'm on the "false" option, everything looks like it should be. But you know what? I have some news for you. When I use Helvetica font outside the browser (in MS Word for example), there is the same problem! The only conclusion is that my Helvetica font is not the "original" one, but some version for local serbian market, so I cannot blame FF anymore for this. There were other problems, but as we can see now, they are under control after some of the late upgrades.

So, I have two options now:

  1. To keep using "false" option for the gfx.e10s.font-list.shared line because I don't see any other problem or difference, and everything is working just fine that way,
  2. To find another version od Helvetica font and reinstall it in my system, hoping that it will solve the problem for good.

One way or another, we can say with a lot of confidence that we dont have this bug anymore:-)

Thx and bye!

Flags: needinfo?(alfa8link)

And just one more thing! I just checked, Chrome and other browsers still don't have the same problem with my Helvetica font as it is right now! They are all behaving like my FF with "false" option. I had to say this because maybe it's the information of interest for you guys!

Ok, it seems this is all behaving as expected, except for that weird Helvetica font. It'd be interesting to know if that font is pre-installed somehow on some Windows systems or if it's some external software that put it there?

Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 2 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME

Thanks for the followup! Glad to know it's not our bug. :) Appreciate the bug report nonetheless & all the help with getting to the bottom of it; it's nice to not have bugs like this remain mysteries forever.

(As Emilio noted, though: if you have any recollection about how you got this broken version of Helvetica, that could help us figure out how much to be worried about other users potentially hitting the same thing...)

As I wrote before, I have a collection of 1.000+ fonts and I install everything on my computers whenever I deal with new hardware/Windows. The question remains why, with the same font collection and sowtware packages, two of my four computers have the Helvetica issue, and two of them have not (if we talk about ŠČĐ characters, but I had some font differences with every one of four comps)!!? That is a million $ question for what I don't have good answer. And also the question why every other browser don't have the Helvetica issue, only FF!? But it is what it is, I can't do much more, and the only important thing is that my FF doesn't break down like it did before some of the updates...

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