Closed Bug 1723922 Opened 3 years ago Closed 2 years ago

Problem with Font

Categories

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

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

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: rtb2002, Unassigned)

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

Screenshot_2021-08-04 Mendoz Suit - Responsive HTML 5 template.png
196.65 KB, image/png
Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.9; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

Hi.

After updating to a new version, the font stopped displaying correctly. For example, the footer for this page: http://designarc.biz/demos/mendoz/mendoz-suit-preview/index.html

I have installed Firefox 78.12.0esr for Mac OS X 10.9.5

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

Component: Untriaged → Layout: Text and Fonts
Product: Firefox → Core

I wonder if this has something to do with Open Sans being a variation font (though we shouldn't be attempting to use variations on 10.9...).

If you go to about:config and set layout.css.font-variations.enabled to false, does that make any difference?

Do you know what version of Firefox you were using previously, when the site displayed properly? Was it an earlier release of 78esr, or an older version than that?

Flags: needinfo?(rtb2002)

If you go to about:config and set layout.css.font-variations.enabled to false, does that make any difference?
I tried this, but it has no effect, the problem persists.

Do you know what version of Firefox you were using previously, when the site displayed properly? Do you know what version of Firefox you were using previously, when the site displayed properly? Was it an earlier release of 78esr, or an older version than that?

Unfortunately, I cannot say for sure. I have not followed this. I can assume that this was the previous version. My update is automatic.

Flags: needinfo?(rtb2002)

rtb2002: just wanted to be sure you saw this request from comment 2, too:

If you go to about:config and set layout.css.font-variations.enabled to false, does that make any difference?

(In case it's not clear, about:config is a special internal-configuration page inside of Firefox where you can tweak various settings. Just type about:config into your Firefox address bar and hit enter, and then take note of & click through the warning, and then type layout.css.font-variations.enabled into the search bar on that page (this should bring up exactly one entry), and then double-click that entry so that it shows "false" as its value.)

Depending on whether you still see the bug after making that change (and reloading the affected page), that will help get to the root of what's going on here. Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(rtb2002)

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

rtb2002: just wanted to be sure you saw this request from comment 2, too:

If you go to about:config and set layout.css.font-variations.enabled to false, does that make any difference?

(In case it's not clear, about:config is a special internal-configuration page inside of Firefox where you can tweak various settings. Just type about:config into your Firefox address bar and hit enter, and then take note of & click through the warning, and then type layout.css.font-variations.enabled into the search bar on that page (this should bring up exactly one entry), and then double-click that entry so that it shows "false" as its value.)

Depending on whether you still see the bug after making that change (and reloading the affected page), that will help get to the root of what's going on here. Thanks!

Thank you for your message. I have this parameter set as "false". Please see my screenshot at: https://ibb.co/d5hdxbP
But I cannot change it, the lock icon is visible there.

Flags: needinfo?(rtb2002)

OK, good - that's how it should be when running on 10.9.

If you try an older version of 78esr such as the original 78.0esr release from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/78.0esr/mac/en-US/, does the problem happen there?

(If you download the .dmg file, it should be possible to mount the disk image and run Firefox directly from there, without having to install it permanently or interfere with your normal installation at all, just to test whether the bug occurs.)

Thanks.
I tried it in version 78.0esr and it doesn't have this problem with Font.
Please see my screenshot: https://ibb.co/9vSJjGZ

Thanks for checking. So we should try to figure out what changed in the ESR update that could have affected this.

If you have time to try the same thing with the 78.0.11esr release from https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/78.11.0esr/mac/en-US/ (and if necessary earlier releases) to confirm exactly which version introduced the problem, that would help narrow it down. Unfortunately I don't have a machine running 10.9 to test this myself.

I tried it in version 78.11.0esr and it doesn't have this problem with Font.
Please see my screenshot: https://ibb.co/VJr989V

Good news!
Today, to my surprise, I found out that in my version of Firefox (78.12.0esr) the font began to work without problems.
My assumption is that the Open Sans font that is loaded from the Google website was incorrectly substituted for this version of the browser. As I understand, they fixed it.

Thank you!

Same issue here (ff 78.12.0esr, osx 10.11.6) - affecting Open Sans and InterVariable.
Examples:
https://splice.com/home - InterVariable
https://www.bcbstx.com/ - OpenSans

The issue with Open Sans has been resolved by itself today, had to clear my caches (doing the same yesterday didn't help).
The issue with InterVariable is still present.

Tried ff 78.11.0esr with spice.com - it has the same issue, no changes, compared to 78.12.0esr

https://splice.com/home , sorry for the typo

This seems like quite a bad failure, though it might be related to something (font caches etc) about the local system, in which case perhaps not widespread. From comments 7 - 11, it seems unclear whether there is a specific ESR release where the behavior regressed, or if the behavior of these variable fonts (on older macOS versions) has always been unreliable.

In principle, Firefox should not be attempting to use any font-variation features on systems before 10.13, but it looks like the presence of variation data may still be causing problems even though we don't try to use it.

Severity: -- → S3

(In reply to Jonathan Kew (:jfkthame) from comment #13)

This seems like quite a bad failure, though it might be related to something (font caches etc) about the local system, in which case perhaps not widespread. From comments 7 - 11, it seems unclear whether there is a specific ESR release where the behavior regressed, or if the behavior of these variable fonts (on older macOS versions) has always been unreliable.

In principle, Firefox should not be attempting to use any font-variation features on systems before 10.13, but it looks like the presence of variation data may still be causing problems even though we don't try to use it.

78.13esr - issue on https://splice.com/home is still present. I'll try a few older versions, maybe I'll be able to find one that works (I definitely remember splice working correctly 2-3 months ago)
But judging by the fact that the issue with OpenSans had resolved itself one day for multiple people (I had to clean my browser's caches, although it didn't help before that day) - it is something about that specific font. Google has, probably, updated it and it resolved the issue, but as Splice are using their own version of InterVariable served from their site - the issue is still present with it.

Thanks -- if you're able to find an older version where it works, and then it fails in the next release, that would be helpful.

I'm also wondering, does Inter work for you if you view it directly at https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Inter?query=inter?

(In reply to Jonathan Kew (:jfkthame) from comment #15)

I'm also wondering, does Inter work for you if you view it directly at https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Inter?query=inter?

Yes, official Inter works completely fine.
Splice has InterVariable - it may be changed compared to google's Inter (or renamed old version of it).

Does version 91 have the same issues?

Flags: needinfo?(rtb2002)
Flags: needinfo?(nekoth)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #17)

Does version 91 have the same issues?

Version 91 is not supported on my OS (MacOS 10.11.6) - 78.15.0esr is the latest supported version, and this issue is on old MacOS with ESR release, definitely related to variable fonts support missing in OS in case variable fonts are requested - fallback works not as expected.
When we have fonts loaded from google cdn - issue is not present, looks like their current version of fonts have no such issue, but in case some sites have their own versions of fonts - issue still present for those. Right now issue can be checked on https://splice.com/ - font InterVariable is invisible to me here.

Flags: needinfo?(nekoth)

Clear a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user.

Inactive users most likely will not respond; if the missing information is essential and cannot be collected another way, the bug maybe should be closed as INCOMPLETE.

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(rtb2002)

As far as I can tell from the discussions here, this bug was specific to Firefox 78 ESR, which is at "end-of-life" and not receiving updates anymore as of bug 1738908 (which is the last commit in the https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-esr78/ repo).

(Per comment 18, some EOL'ed macOS versions aren't supported by newer Firefox releases, which is unfortunate; I imagine there may be some users stuck on the final ESR78 version as a result, who might be affected by this esr78-specific bug, but at this point I think we've spun down our mechanisms for shipping fixes for that release.)

So: I'm going to close this as WORKSFORME since as far as I can tell this only affected that old release channel and newer releases are unaffected (i.e. this was fixed by an unknown patch in some later version of Firefox, or possibly never affected later versions in the first place).

If I'm misunderstanding and someone can reproduce with newer Firefox release channels, please reopen and add any notes/info that you can about that. Thanks!

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

Occasionally Mac desktop Firefox shows certain fonts as gibberish characters. It is usually after an automatic update. This is quite annoying. I first try to remedy by emptying web cache. If that doesn't work, I flush global font cache using a font utility (which requires a Mac OS reboot). This happens on two of my Macs – one running 10.13.x and the other running 10.14.x.

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