1830517 - Tofu boxes are shown for some of the African group languages if font visibility is set to 1 or 2

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

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

Description

[Simona Badau, Desktop QA]

Found in

• Nighty 114.0a1

Affected versions

• Nightly 114.0a1

Tested platforms

• Affected platforms: Mac 13, Ubuntu 20.04, and Windows 11

Preconditions

• in about:config, set the preference "layout.css.font-visibility.private" to 1.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open a private window.
2. Navigate to Wikipedia and look for the following languages: Adlam, Bamum, Bassa_Vah, nko, Osmanya and Vai.
3. Observe the African group fonts.

Expected result

• The fonts should be properly displayed in Private Browsing.

Actual result

During private browsing, the following languages are displaying tofu boxes:

• Adlam, Bamum, Bassa_Vah, Osmanya and Vai on macOS.
• Adlam, Bamum, Bassa_Vah, nko - On Ubuntu 20.04
• Bassa_Vah - On Windows 11.

Regression range
This is not a regression, the font visibility preference is set to 3 on all previous versions: ESR, Beta, and Release.

Additional notes

• The tofu boxes are also displayed when the preference "layout.css.font-visibility.private" is set to 2.
• The tofu boxes are not displayed in normal browsing or when "layout.css.font-visibility.private" is set to 3.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

:sbadau, if you think that's a regression, could you try to find a regression range using for example mozregression?

Comment 2

[Ciprian Georgiu, Desktop QA]

We have rechecked this issue with latest Nightly 106.0a1, and it seems that Adlam, Bamum, Bassa_Vah fonts are still displayed with tofu boxes with PBM. Is this something expected on Ubuntu 22.04 x64, given the fact that https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1836590 has landed?

Note that nko font is also not correctly displayed in normal window on Ubuntu 20.04. On Win 10, Bassa_Vah is displayed with tofu boxes in normal window as well. On macOS the issue is fixed.

Comment 3

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

(In reply to Ciprian Georgiu, Desktop QA from comment #2)

We have rechecked this issue with latest Nightly 106.0a1, and it seems that Adlam, Bamum, Bassa_Vah fonts are still displayed with tofu boxes with PBM.

Please confirm what specific fonts are being used (in the normal window) for these scripts - thanks.

Comment 4

[Ciprian Georgiu, Desktop QA]

(In reply to Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame] from comment #3)

Please confirm what specific fonts are being used (in the normal window) for these scripts - thanks.

I've inspected each script (via Devtools - Fonts inspector) and the fonts being used in normal windows are as follows:

• for Adlam - Noto Sans Adlam
• for Bamum - Noto Sans Bamum
• for Bassa_Vah - Noto Sans Bassa Vah

Let me know if we can help with more info!

Comment 5

[Tom Ritter [:tjr] (OOTO until April)]

So I am on Windows 11 (not a clean install) and Adlam renders fine for me, because wikipedia specifies font-family: Ebrima,"Noto Sans Adlam"; and I have Ebrima installed and it's in the standard font list.

Windows talks about Ebrima here and it is listed as being installed in Win7-11. Albeit with different versions in each - there's also the comment (on the Win11 page) "Your versions numbers may be different if you did not apply Windows updates." which I take to mean they bump the version via windows update.

I'm going to dig into other platforms/fonts...

Comment 6

[Tom Ritter [:tjr] (OOTO until April)]

Ah okay, I see now that Adlam didn't have a problem rendering on Win11; it was on Ubuntu/mac. Bassa Vah did have a problem rendering on Windows 11 though.

For Bassa Vah on my messy Win11 installation - I see some of the tofu boxes on the page (such as those in the blue info box in the upper right) are styled with Noto Sans Bassa Vah. Other ones, like those in the 'Letters' table in te Bassa Vah column - are not styled with any font family. I can't tell any difference between Visibility Setting 1 and 3 - I don't have Noto Sans Bassa Vah installed at all. Nor do I see it on any of the Windows pages listing fonts.

Given the note "The tofu boxes are also displayed when the preference "layout.css.font-visibility.private" is set to 2" and the lack of an entry on the Windows page - my conclusion for this bug is that a bunch of Noto Sans fonts must have gotten installed on the testing machines from somewhere. ...

Comment 7

[Tom Ritter [:tjr] (OOTO until April)]

For Adlam and others on Ubuntu 22 - I'm expecting this is a locally installed font, and that it will not work with pref=1 and work with pref=2 like several other bugs.

For Bassa Vah on Windows - I expect it is the same situation.