Release 13.1 breaks monospace fonts for at least some programs, on Ubuntu MATE 20.04

[64kramsystem]

Hello!

The latest release (13.1) breaks monospace fonts for at least some programs.

Essentially, in some programs (Firefox, Visual Studio Code, and others) at least some fonts that were previously (as of 13.0) displayed as monospace, are now displayed as variable width (or in a very "compressed" form - it's not clear).

I'm on Ubuntu MATE 20.04, and this is a reproducible issue on my two 20.04 machines. It can be solved by rolling back to v13.0.

I've checked both the README and the release notes, but I don't see any explicit action to take. I don't know if fix: Linux - Allow override of Vera is related, but it doesn't mention that the user should take action.

Steps to reproduce

• configure the PPA
• install the latest version of the package (13.1)
• launch firefox
• open a Github commit page
  • example: on this, the hash symbol (#) on line 27 displays below the f of the f, instead of below the 0.

[13rac1]

😱 Thanks for the detailed bug report! Why must fonts be so complicated??? I mean, I know why, but 🤦🏼 . The only difference is changing that file, which should not be related. Can you try renaming the file back? It is 46-twemoji-color.conf it was 56-twemoji-color.conf, that's the only change.

[64kramsystem]

scream Thanks for the detailed bug report! Why must fonts be so complicated??? I mean, I know why, but 🤦🏼 .

😂

The only difference is changing that file, which should not be related. Can you try renaming the file back? It is 46-twemoji-color.conf it was 56-twemoji-color.conf, that's the only change.

So, as first test, I've installed the 13.0 package and changed the 56* to 46*, in order to isolate this change from the ttf file change (I have no idea what's the change in that file, but I think it was a good idea to rule it out), and indeed, it reproduced the problem.

Now, this is the list of files under /etc/fonts/conf.d that are in the (closed) interval [46*, 56*]:

49-sansserif.conf -> ../conf.avail/49-sansserif.conf
50-user.conf -> ../conf.avail/50-user.conf
51-local.conf -> ../conf.avail/51-local.conf

I'm not sure if any of this sounds familiar and/or it helps in any way.

I've also tried to change the /etc/fonts/conf.*/*-twemoji-color.conf files to 50-* and then to 49-*; any of those two changes, independently, solves the problem. It could therefore be (but I have no clue of the underlying concepts) that the issue revolves around 49-sansserif.conf.

If you have any ideas, let me know! I can also test it on an entirely clean systems, although that should take me a bit 😄.

[64kramsystem]

Technically speaking, only changing the symlink under /etc/fonts/conf.d is enough; I've done a brief test, and the same results as above apply.

[13rac1]

Can you upload example screenshots for others to reference?

This change comes recommended by multiple users, originally in #21 (comment) Does any of the discussion there assist? We could just change it to 50-* or 49-*, but I want to understand "why" first.

[64kramsystem]

I absolutely agree with understanding the problem, especially for projects distributed to users 😄 👍

For starters, this is an ok screenshot:

Now, if I execute mv /etc/fonts/conf.d/{56,48}-twemoji-color.conf, which renames the symlink, and wait for a few seconds, the new look is this:

There are different effects all over the operating system. Some programs show smaller fonts. Nothing is really breaking, although the Firefox one is definitely a breakage (from a user perspective), as fixed-width is crucial in that context.

I'll had an in-depth look at the thread. I've started looking at it, and it guess it boils down to wildly different configurations. I have a less mainstream one (MATE), so I'm at fault 😁

My default font is the standard (MATE) one - Ubuntu [Mono] Regular.

Thanks for your replies 😄

[64kramsystem]

So! Well, just to rule out issues with my configuration, I've tested on a stock Ubuntu MATE 20.04 system (live USB), and it shows the same problem (Firefox -> git.io/JcnNL -> see screenshots).

I've read the thread, but I don't have domain knowledge to understand in-depth 😅.

I personally can live with the package as is now, as it seems that there is no 100% generic solution, however, I'll try to use the Debian alternatives system to manage the symlink, otherwise, a simple rename will cause the fonts to break on each package update.

I've renamed the issue to restrict it to MATE.

[ARitz-Cracker]

Hey there, I'm getting issue with monospace fonts being broken as well in Firefox. I'm using Lubuntu 22.04, with v14.0.2 of this font. Messing around with the config order didn't help fix the problem, I suspect there might be an issue with the font config.