613848 - gfx.direct2d.disabled=false causes font problems

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b7) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b7) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0b7

System details:
Windows 7 64 bit
NVIDIA Geforce GTS 250
Driver NVIDIA 9-7-2010 8.17.12.5896

Problem:
When gfx.direct2d.disabled is set to false Firefox is showing incorrect font type and size in the menu bar, status bar, pop-up boxes, everywhere.

Even the layout of the internet page is incorrect.

Many examples can be fond on:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2032775


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.No steps needed. Standard behavior of Firefox > 4.0b6.   
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

Forgot to mention that the suggestion made by Ver Greeneyes on http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2032775 to:

gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled set to true and gfx.direct2d.disabled set to false

did not work.

Comment 2

[Emanuel Hoogeveen [:ehoogeveen]]

One more thing that might be relevant: I know you tested both the Dutch localization of FF 4.0b7 and the EN-US version, but what is the localization of your OS? Is it 1) the native Dutch version, 2) localized to Dutch through windows update, or 3) the native English version?

Comment 3

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

1) the native Dutch version

Comment 4

[piotrprz]

A saw exactly the same issue on native Polish Windows x64 (acceleration enabled). So, the issue is present on:

Windows 7 64 bit
ATI Radeon HD 3600 HD
newest Catalyst drivers

I currently have no access to this PC so I can't provide more information. If I remember correctly the problem started with beta 3 or beta 4.

Comment 5

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

Attachment: display simple text using all fonts

This will display all fonts on your system.  First, download it locally.  Open it in Firefox 4 and click on "Allow" since the javascript on the page uses a priv API.  The page will then render text using all the fonts on your system.  Let me know the name of the font that's showing up in UI.

Also, could you copy the "Modified Preferences" section of 'about:support'?  I'm especially looking for modified font.xxx prefs.  Thanks!

Comment 6

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

Could this be an example of bug 594906? If the Windows theme is set up to use a bitmap-only font, then Firefox with acceleration enabled will be unable to use it (because DirectWrite doesn't support such fonts), and will end up using some "random" other font instead.

Try modifying the Windows theme to make sure it specifies a truetype/opentype font such as Segoe UI, and see if that makes any difference to FF4.

Comment 7

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

Attachment: about:support from failing user

Comment 8

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

@ John:
The attachment did not work. Nothing was displayed.

@ Jonathan:
I tried this as well. No success.

To both:
I am sure it is related to a windows user setting.
2 windows users had this problem. 1 windows did not have this problem. I created a new one also no problem for this windows user.

Comment 9

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> @ John:
> The attachment did not work. Nothing was displayed.

You *must* download it locally first.  Then open the local copy.

Since safe mode appears to work, I would also try disabling the AVG extensions one by one to see if either of those affects the default font used.

It doesn't look like you've changed any of the font defaults so the only thing I can guess is that there's some strange font conflict on your system.  I think this may be a weird variant of bug 551313, where the DirectWrite font mapper is magically mapping some weird font into the Segoe UI family.  Slightly far-fetched but I can't think of what else could be causing this.  Figuring out the funky font will help us figure out what the problem is.

Comment 10

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

This worked.

Comment 11

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

Attachment: result of: display simple text using all fonts

Comment 12

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

AVG is disabled by default. Not compatible with Firefox 4 I guess.
By the way, AVG is also mandatory for the other users on the system, including the ones that work fine.

I appreciate all the effort you are putting into solving this.
But switching gfx.direct2d.disabled on works now for me.
Having said this, I am also willing to assist you as much as possible to identify what is causing this strange behavior in Firefox 4.

I use Firefox 4 for a couple of months I guess but did not experience it in the beginning.

Comment 13

[Emanuel Hoogeveen [:ehoogeveen]]

Can you identify the font Firefox is using in the output of that test? Since you attached it as text/html I'm not sure we can see it if we don't have the font in question (nothing in that list looks similar to me to the screenshots in the thread where you first reported it.

Comment 14

[Emanuel Hoogeveen [:ehoogeveen]]

Doing some testing on my own with the screenshots and http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ the font seems to be Latin Wide from the Linotype family, which probably corresponds with a stretched version of Palatino Linotype in your list.

Comment 15

[Emanuel Hoogeveen [:ehoogeveen]]

Oh, or Wide Latin, which I don't have and thus probably doesn't show up right for me.

Comment 16

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

Do you need anything from me Emanuel?

Comment 17

[Emanuel Hoogeveen [:ehoogeveen]]

Can you confirm which font most closely resembles what you're seeing in the list from that test?

Comment 18

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

It looks the most on New Times Roman.
But a lot of fonts have similarities with this font.

Comment 19

[John Daggett (:jtd)]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Created attachment 493348 [details]
> result of: display simple text using all fonts

The key here is to pin down the font that matches the one used in the screenshots.  Could you attach a screenshot of the font that matches the font in the UI dialogs when direct2d is enabled?

Comment 20

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

Attachment: Font that matches to weird Firefox font

Wide Latin:Firefox slaat informatie

I tried to pin down also the font used in the Home Page field (Mozilla Firefox Home Page). Looks like a capital font type with a , below the S but this font does not show up in the file 'result of: display simple text using all fonts'

Comment 21

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

Now with the latest version of Firefox 4.0b9 and everything back to default settings I do not have this problem anymore.

Comment 22

[(mostly gone) XtC4UaLL [:xtc4uall]]

What's your Graphics Info from about:support (Bottom)?
Maybe your Card got blacklisted.

Comment 23

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

about:support is enclosed as a file.

Comment 24

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

OP could you still reproduce it with latest nVidia drivers and Firefox ?

Comment 25

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

I can already for a very long time not reproduce the issues I had when creating this ticket. See my post on 21-01-2011: "Now with the latest version of Firefox 4.0b9 and everything back to default settings I do not have this problem anymore.

Comment 26

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

So please mark this as WORKSFORME.

Comment 27

[Evert-Jan van den Ham]

WORKSFORME

Comment 28

[Virtual_ManPL [:Virtual] 🇵🇱 - (please needinfo? me - so I will see your comment/reply/question/etc.)]

Yep, but in the status you can change that ;p