Quicksand font: letters cropped in <select>

[TomOne]

The text of <select> elements with font-family: "Quicksand" is cropped and only partially visible even with no additional CSS is applied.

It looks like this:

Live example: https://codepen.io/zoyara/pen/GVjdNq (tested in Chrome v75)

Interestingly this only happens when at least two font-weights are loaded from Google Fonts, e.g.
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Quicksand:400,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

With only one font-weight, the text in the <select> element renders normally:
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Quicksand&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

Example with one font-weight: https://codepen.io/zoyara/pen/aemGvX. This example is identical to to previous one except it only loads https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Quicksand:400&display=swap

[m4rc1e]

Thanks for reporting this. Can confirm the issue for Win Chrome only.

This issue is being caused by the MVAR table. If I strip out the table, the results are fine.

I reported this issue to Microsoft last year.

For our other variable fonts, Comfortaa and Oswald, I stripped the MVARs out before releasing them.

@nyshadhr9 Shall I quickly push an update where I simply strip out this table? For this family, the MVAR is simply changing the strikeout offset by 12 units which is rather negligible.

@felipesanches In Fontbakery can we add the "MVAR" table to our check com_google_fonts_check_unwanted_tables?

[m4rc1e]

@TomOne thank you once again. The issue should now be solved.

[TomOne]

Great, thank you

[arrowtype]

FWIW, I can’t reproduce this issue with Recursive v1.077, which does include an MVAR table to vary underline & strikethrough sizing.

Using Recursive v1.077 Variable as a local font, it looks fine in Firefox, Edge, and Chrome

Recursive v1.077 Variable also has normal line heights in VS Code:

Recursive v1.077 Variable, in Windows 10 Font Settings:

Rec Code Duotone v1.074 (static, without MVAR), in Windows 10 Font Settings has similar line heights:

[arrowtype]

Oh, but Cascadia Code just removed MVAR for what seemed to be the issue, reported just 29 days ago, so it probably still exists, even though I can’t reproduce it.

[aaronbell]

@arrowtype FWIW, I couldn’t repro the bug locally with Cascadia Code either. Must be a secondary contributing factor we haven’t identified.

Removing MVAR solved it for the folks experiencing the bug. 🤷‍♂️

[arrowtype]

I have heard the claim that it is a bug in older versions of Windows, though I can’t cite a source to back that up, and I’m not sure exactly where it may have been fixed.

It looks like the bug report in your repo was from Windows 10, version 1809, from Oct 2018. I tested on version 1909, from Nov 2019. (Windows 10 version history)

[arrowtype]

...and actually, that just means that I’m unsure whether the Windows issue regarding MVAR was fixed as of Windows 10, version 1903 (May 2019) or not until 1909 (Nov 2019).