681919 - Font rendering error, missing characters and drag selection also broken on certain site

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[Alice0775 White]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/198c7de0699d
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:9.0a1) Gecko/20110824 Firefox/9.0a1 ID:20110824030813

Fanolian reported a bug (see http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=11174279#p11174279)

Characters are missing in Nightly and Firefox 6, but Chrome 13 and IE9 are displaying fine.
In addition, I cannot click-and-drag to highlight the affected words, or words on the same line subsequent to the affected ones. To highlight them I have to double-click or click-and-drag_to_the_next_line.

It does not happen if gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled=false.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Firefox with clean profile
2. Open URL

Actual Results:

In case of disabled HWA:
Font missing, and replaced with blank
2nd line: o  en indecipherable
7th line: intentions in this ma  er.

In case of enabled HWA:
Font collapsed and stop drag selection
2nd line: oen indecipherable
7th line: intentions in this maer.

Expected Results:
2nd line: often indecipherable
2nd line: intentions in this matter.


#1Regression window with force enabled DirectWrite,

Works:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/575fe0710b22
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a2pre) Gecko/20100225 Minefield/3.7a2pre ID:20100225132211
Fails(font collapsed and stop drag selection):
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0e1c0b71bf13
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a2pre) Gecko/20100225 Minefield/3.7a2pre ID:20100225230231
Pushlog:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=575fe0710b22&tochange=0e1c0b71bf13
Triggered by:
0e1c0b71bf13 Bas Schouten — Bug 527707: Add Direct2D and DirectWrite backend integration to thebes and widget. Preffed off by default r=jrmuizel r=jmathies r=jfkthame

#2Regression window without HWA,

Works:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/052a1c415457
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a3pre) Gecko/20100314 Minefield/3.7a3pre ID:20100314214215
Fails(font missing, and replaced with blank)
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/8ff6056308bd
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.3a3pre) Gecko/20100315 Minefield/3.7a3pre ID:20100315042737
Pushlog:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/pushloghtml?fromchange=052a1c415457&tochange=8ff6056308bd
Triggered by:
8ff6056308bd Jonathan Kew — bug 502906 - part 3 - factor out Uniscribe and GDI shapers from Windows GDI font code. r=jdaggett

Comment 1

[Jim Jeffery not reading bug-mail 1/2/11]

Interesting enough however, if you copy the 2nd line and paste it into 'notepad', the missing characters are pasted. 7th line copies here ok as well and will paste the missing letters, i.e. 't'

Win7 x64 using latest m-c hourly build based on cset:
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/e58e98a89827

Comment 2

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

The same problem shows up on OS X and Linux. I suspect it may be a problem with the downloadable fonts being used - and doesn't show up in other browsers because they don't support the OpenType ligature features. However, this is only a guess for now; I am trying to contact the web-font provider to investigate further.

Comment 3

[Fanolian]

There are other missing -ft- or -tt- across the whole document, for instance "little" or "Microsoft". Using other fonts does not cause the error.

If I search for the affected words, e.g. search oft and then del t (so that firefox is focusing on the affected word), firefox highlights all the words on the same line after the affected ones.

Comment 4

[Thomas Phinney]

Jonathan asked for our help first thing this morning. The problem turns out to be a font bug in the web fonts being used (Athelas by TypeTogether via our WebINK web font service).

I have made an appropriate fix to the fonts and passed it on to the folks who push them live. It should be live Real Soon Now. Check back tomorrow or next week and it should all be better. Our apologies to all affected users and viewers.

Comment 5

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

Many thanks to Thomas and the Extensis/WebINK team for the prompt response!

I'll leave this report open for now, until the updated fonts are deployed and we double-check that everything renders properly.

Comment 6

[Jonathan Kew [:jfkthame]]

The vismor.com site (from the URL field) now appears to render properly, without missing "ft" and "tt" glyphs.

The issue wasn't a Firefox bug, so resolving this as "invalid" (although it was definitely a useful report, nevertheless!)