[Linux] Squares instead of text in some applications

[gentakojima]

First of all, thank you very much for your work. I think it's awesome to be able to see color emojis at last on Linux.

I'm having a problem with Mysql Workbench, showing squares instead of text in the main screen. Most screens and dialogs also have this problem but in a minor scale, they are mostly usable.

Some details blurred on purpose, but not squares in there:

[13rac1]

Hi! Are you running v1.0-beta2 or v1.0-beta3? The installation procedure has completely changed due to all of these programs incorrectly using the font fallback system.

Unless you are using v1.0-beta3, this is a duplicate of #5 and #18 which was fixed by #2 and #17.

[gentakojima]

Oops. Yes, you're right. I'm running v1.0-beta2 and this seems to be fixed in v1.0-beta3, indeed.

But beta3 broke the emojis for me on Ubuntu 14.04 (already installed it before, the console is there just for demonstration purposes).

[13rac1]

Well, that's why it's a beta, so I can break things! Haha!

I'm so sick of fighting fontconfig. I had no idea I'd spend so much time on it. Can you give me your output for:

$ fc-match -s sans | head -n 10
Vera.ttf: "Bitstream Vera Sans" "Roman"
EmojiOneColor-SVGinOT.ttf: "Emoji One Color" "Regular"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold Oblique"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
Waree.ttf: "Waree" "Book"
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
KhmerOS.ttf: "Khmer OS" "Regular"
$ fc-match -s "Emoji One Color" | head -n 10
EmojiOneColor-SVGinOT.ttf: "Emoji One Color" "Regular"
Vera.ttf: "Bitstream Vera Sans" "Roman"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold Oblique"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
Waree.ttf: "Waree" "Book"
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
KhmerOS.ttf: "Khmer OS" "Regular"

[gentakojima]

Here it is. Hope you can find something odd, because from what I understand, I can't.

$ fc-match -s sans | head -n 10
Vera.ttf: "Bitstream Vera Sans" "Roman"
EmojiOneColor-SVGinOT.ttf: "Emoji One Color" "Regular"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold Oblique"
Verdana.ttf: "Verdana" "Normal"
Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Normal"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
Waree.ttf: "Waree" "Book"
$ fc-match -s "Emoji One Color" | head -n 10
EmojiOneColor-SVGinOT.ttf: "Emoji One Color" "Regular"
Vera.ttf: "Bitstream Vera Sans" "Roman"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold Oblique"
Verdana.ttf: "Verdana" "Normal"
Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Normal"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
Waree.ttf: "Waree" "Book"

[13rac1]

Yes, that's correct, I know it's hidden but can you post the specific font request also:
$ fc-match -s "Emoji One Color" | head -n 10

I assume you've tried restarting Firefox and X(aka logoff/login)? The computer doesn't need a complete restart, just gnome/unity/etc. What about Chrome? Is it using the correct b&w glyphs?

[gentakojima]

I've posted the other command also in a ninja edit some minutes ago.

Just restarted Firefox to make sure. I can't restart X right now, but beta 2 started working right away so I didn't think of doing that.

I'll try to restart X as soon as possible and report. Same for Chrome/Chromium, I don't use it so I'll have to install it.

[13rac1]

started working right away so I didn't think of doing that.

I've noticed in some of the massive number of times I've installed the font that character updates work correctly, but complete font changes don't. I technically renamed the font between beta2 and beta3 by fixing an oversight bug in SCFBuild. It was identified before as "Emoji One Color Regular", but now is correctly "Emoji One Color SVGinOT" I'm adding SVGinOT to the fullname to be clear about which color format is provided. I'm working on adding Apple's proprietary SBIX and the OpenType color bitmap format (Google's) to the build system too.

I don't use it so I'll have to install it.

You don't need to install Chrome. Just copy/paste some text into gedit or another text editor. Anything that'll use the b&w glyphs.

[gentakojima]

Ok, it seems the problem only affects Firefox. Gedit looks great (in b/w of course, but at least it's using the correct emojis).

Also, I've now restarted the system and the problem persists.

[gentakojima]

I confirm that using the 1.0-beta3 ttf file with the fontconfig conf file from 1.0-beta2 works as expected.

After replacing new fontconfig file, it only takes a few seconds for Firefox to stop displaying emojis correctly. Putting the old fontconfig file, makes it work properly again.

I understand the new approach, but it's not working for me, for some reason. It seems like emojis from DejaVu Sans and Symbola are taking precedence.

Fun enough, I tried this on a clean 16.04 machine and it worked properly. Don't know why. I'll try it again on another user profile on the same 14.04 machine tomorrow.

[13rac1]

The problem could be a Firefox regression found by @saltyhorse: #1 (comment)

It was a solution for me to "clear the firefox font cache":

I just noticed Firefox was still using DejaVu Sans as the source for some emoji even though my new fonts.conf has it far down the list. Setting gfx.font_rendering.fontconfig.fontlist.enabled to false and restarting fixed the problem. Setting it back to true kept the new internal font list, sort of a cache clear.

Direct link to Firefox Regression: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1254245

[gentakojima]

Hey, you're right!

Thank you for the support, I hope this gets fixed soon on Firefox. Maybe you can add a warning on the README.md to avoid annoying people like me 💃

I can confirm MySQL Workbench also works properly now! 👯

[13rac1]

Awesome! You should/could add your specific experience to the Firefox bug report. It's caused by my font... again... haha, but your experience means far more people will encounter it.

I'll add a note about this to the readme after the GTK bug.