UI scaling and font scaling sometime get confused/change at random.

[James Lewis]

I have a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, with a 13.3" screen running at 3200x1800 pixels... I bought this partly to test out the UI scaling in Unity!... and I have to say it's very awesome (both the screen and the UI scaling)... however I have encountered a strange problem.

Seemingly at random, I have so far 3 times in 10 days had the font size (not UI size) suddenly jump to something much too large.

UI scaling for the display is set at 1.38x and this is quite perfect for me, it sure means no one will be able to read my screen over my shoulder, but I that's fine! I had to install a Firefox plugin to apply scaling there, but I realise why that is.

Anyway... I installed ubuntu-tweak and discovered that the large fonts were due to the "Text Scaling Factor" having jumped up to a number above 2.5... I also discovered that I could not move the slider because every time I moved it the fonts re-scaled the slider moved and lost mouse focus... and the slider reset to where it was to begin with... I clicked the button on the right to return to 1.0, and it returned to 1.4, which I assume is representative of the 1.38 I set in the screen scaling... but I have no explanation for why it suddenly jumped (when I logged out and back in) from 1.4 to something like 2.5.)..

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.2.0+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.47-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed May 7 20:55:53 2014
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-28 (8 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

The text scaling factor in unity must be controlled using this different key:

  gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Interface text-scale-factor

[pabouk (pabouk)]

I think that the bug was misunderstood. I have noticed the same bug but when I scaled the UI the other way -- down.

In "System Settings > Displays > Scale for menu and title bars" I set 0.875 to have smaller control elements in the GUI. This setting also scaled the fonts down. Unfortunately few days later I noticed that the fonts are very small - almost unreadable. I did not have Unity Tweak installed at this time so it is not certainly a bug on the Unity Tweak Tool.

Returning the "Scale for menu and title bars" parameter back to 1 did not return the scaling to normal.

To quickly check various parameters inaccessible in the standard UI I have later installed Unity Tweak and there I noticed that the scaling factor for fonts was set to 0.5. I have never configured the scaling factor for fonts! After returning both scaling factors to 1 the system appears normally again.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[strial (strial)]

Same for me the font size sometimes appeard to change to a very little one...

[aproposnix (aproposnix)]

I actually opened this as a question on AskUbuntu about a week ago si ti affects me as well.
http://goo.gl/hCBV4w

[pabouk (pabouk)]

As I wrote in #3 unity-tweak-tool was used only to discover and revert consequences of the bug in Unity.

[James Lewis (james-fsck)]

I confirm what pabouk said in #8, I did not install unity-tweak-tool until after I had the issue and had re-installed from scratch and encountered the issue for a second time. I have also encountered this issue several times subsequently and had to use unity-tweak-tool to restore the setting.

I have a QHD+ screen (3200x1800) so I am scaling the UI up, (1.38), and I find that the fonts become very large when this issue happens.... and I find that in unity-tweak-tool I see that the size is 2.8x until I reset it. The reset button says that it will restore the value to 1.0, but infact restores it to 1.4 which I assume is because of the 1.38x UI scaling.

This is definitely not an issue with unity-tweak-tool... I simply used that tool to restore the desktop to a sane state.

[RustyNail (wnoble2005)]

Also affects me on my Samsung Ativ Book 9 when trying to scale up to 1.5. Have seen it many times over the past week while setting up the ultrabook. Maybe a coincidence, but I notice the the font size increase mostly after doing an install. This morning while setting up a repository, update, install, reboot the font size went from 1.5 to 2.58.

[Bruno Fernandez (br1-fdz)]

Hi, affects also me, with Ubuntu 14.04 (64 bit)

with he folowing HW

Processore e Chipset
Intel® Atom™ N330 Dual Core
Memoria
2 x So-DIMM Slots, DDR2-800 4GB
HDD
SATA 2.5 - 250GB
Unità Ottica
Slim Slot-in Super Multi DVD-RW
Chipset
NVIDIA® ION™
Grafica
NVIDIA® ION™
LAN
10/100/1000 Mbps
Wireless
802.11b/g/n
Front Panel
Slot-in Super Multi DVD-RW
Card Reader x 1
USB 2.0 x 2
Headphone-out jack x 1
MIC x 1
Rear Panel
Wi-Fi antenna x 1 (built-in)
USB 2.0 x 4
D-Sub x 1
HDMI out x 1
eSATA x1
Audio out (S/PDIF out) jack x1
Giga Lan x 1
Alimentazione
19Vdc, 3.42A, 65W Power Adaptor
Dimensioni
1.5 L (193mm x 193mm x 39mm)
Weight
1.2kg
Note
Total Media Center / Total Media Theater Lista Supporto Formati
Colore
Noble White & Modern Black

[Bing-lin Young (swordgreen)]

Yes. I have this problem too on Dell XPS 13 9300. I used "Unity Tweak" and "Tweak Tool" to adjust my font size. Now The font size become huge each time when I reboot the Ubuntu 14.04 box, then I have to manually re-adjust the font size. It's very annonying. Please fix it. Thank you!

[arfastore (arthur-montague)]

Just "up the heat" a bit, I am also experiencing this issue. Ubuntu 14.04, Acer Aspire S7. I will certainly try the Tweak tool to rectify in the meantime, thanks to all who found & posted that.

[Alex Armstrong (alehandrof)]

This bug is a duplicate. See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1310316

[hshan (hshan)]

Ditto to arfastore's comment;

" I am also experiencing this issue. Ubuntu 14.04, Acer Aspire S7. I will certainly try the Tweak tool to rectify in the meantime."

[marker1k (dontsendmeletter)]

Ubuntu 14.04 Acer Aspire 5100. I also have this issue.

[rebroad (rebroad)]

Ditto what ~james-fsck says. The problem is that the adjustment above or below 1.0 is incremented each time unity resets, so if someone chose smaller, it keeps getting smaller, or if someone chooses bigger, the font keeps getting bigger. The tweak tool is a temporarily workaround, but the problem is in the way the display preferences interacts with the font sizes - i.e. it keeps re-applying the change.

[rebroad (rebroad)]

To reproduce this issue, simply type "setsid unity" from the command line to see the font size keep deviating from the desired size.

Running, "gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Interface text-scale-factor 1.25" will restore the size to 1.25, for example, if that is the desired size.

[Jason Silver (jasonsilver)]

Affects me too, first time today. Fonts are too small to read.

[shadyyx (krajcar-peter-8)]

Well almost a year after the original bug was filed and we still have this problem live. Affecting also me with a Dell laptop and 3 screens in total setup (one laptop's + 2 displays). Had to upgrade the kernell to 3.13 and install some special Intel graphics drivers. Now when I set the scaling of UI to 0.75 and let the bigger displays (with bigger pixels) scale according to the display with the smallest controls the font size scaling (some very hidden setting) suddenly changes (2-3 times out of 5 logins) to 0.56 making the fonts hardly readable. Unity tweak UI installed just to make sure the scaling can be always reverted to 1.