381464 - Password characters (0x25CF) not shown correctly

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[Arthur]

On Ubuntu Feisty using the Minefield nightly 2007052004 I get placeholder boxes saying "25CF" in html password fields and http authentication prompts (meaning that it wants to display a unicode 0x25CF black circle but none is available).

Other apps like Gnumeric or Kate display the same character (Copy and pasted from Minefield) without problems. So there's a problem in how fonts are chosen.

Back to the problem at hand: GDB says that
/mozilla/widget/src/gtk2/nsLookAndFeel.cpp
 671 {
 672     return sInvisibleCharacter;
 673 }
returns 9679 (0x25CF)

sInvisibleCharacter gets initially set to
PRUnichar nsLookAndFeel::sInvisibleCharacter = PRUnichar('*');
and but is then looked up here:
 660     // invisible character styles
 661     GtkWidget *entry = gtk_entry_new();
 662     guint value;
 663     g_object_get (entry, "invisible-char", &value, NULL);
 664     sInvisibleCharacter = PRUnichar(value);
 665     gtk_widget_destroy(entry);
But I couldn't get GDB to honor a breakpoint I've set there so I don't know
when (and actually whether) that code get's called.

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9a5pre) Gecko/20070521 Minefield/3.0a5pre

This works for me using a trunk build on Feisty. I do have some extra fonts installed, though...

If you wanted to break in that code, you could probably set a breakpoint in nsLookAndFeel::InitLookAndFeel before you start, but since |sInvisibleCharacter| is 0x25CF and not an asterisk, I'm pretty sure that code is getting called.

Comment 2

[Arthur]

g_object_get (entry, "invisible-char", &value, NULL) on line 663 returns 0x25CF in &value from libwidget_gtk2.so, I've managed gdb to break there. The question remains why gnumeric can display the very same character and Firefox can't (on my setup).

Comment 3

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

This looks to me like more of a font selection issue than an issue with the editor code. I suspect it's a duplicate of one of the recent Gfx:Thebes bugs about Linux font selection.

Comment 4

[Adam Guthrie]

I agree, Gavin. I guess we should keep an eye on this when some of those fixes land.

Comment 5

[Robert Kaiser]

I've been seeing this for a while now on Linux, trunk, currently on "Build identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20070621 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre" (self-built). My Firefox builds are showing this as well and IIRC, I saw a few failing characters in SeaMonkey mailnews at a few places as well.

May lots of repeating warnings like the following be connected with this problem?
WARNING: empty langgroup: file /mnt/mozilla/src/mozilla/gfx/thebes/src/gfxFont.cpp, line 566

Comment 6

[Robert Kaiser]

On what pages or with what fonts do you see this?

I'm not seeing this with my default font (Bitstream Vera) but I'm seeing this with Arial.
If you also don't see it with a font like Vera but with one like Arial, this might be another case of bug 362682, actually.

Comment 7

[Arthur]

(In reply to comment #6)
> On what pages or with what fonts do you see this?

I'm seeing it in the password dialogs. I don't know what fonts get chosen. From the system theme settings I'd say that it should be Bitstream Vera Sans Serif. I won't find time in the next few weeks to have a closer look at this.

Comment 8

[Robert Kaiser]

My system theme also has Vera Sans, but most websites I access select Arial if its available through CSS settings, which is where I see the problem.
In the Bugzilla login dialog, I see bullets (I think it's using Verdana, which apparently works), while on other pages, I see those square placeholders.

Comment 9

[Amy Brodzik]

I see this too. As mentioned above, it appears that sites are picking fonts which do not include the bullet. ●

Comment 10

[Arthur]

This works now for me with current nightlies. To make sure that this isn't the result of some changes on my system, Amy, Robert: Can you verify that this works now on your side too? If so, I gonna mark this WorksForMe.

Comment 11

[Amy Brodzik]

(In reply to comment #10)
> This works now for me with current nightlies. To make sure that this isn't the
> result of some changes on my system, Amy, Robert: Can you verify that this
> works now on your side too? If so, I gonna mark this WorksForMe.
> 

Just tried it and it worked for me as well, though I'm using Konqueror to comment here :D

Comment 12

[Arthur]

As long as you used Minefield to test it.. :) Using SeaMonkey btw.

Marking WorksForMe.

Comment 13

[Arthur]

Really marking WorksForMe. Sorry for the bugspam. :(