openmotif: XmTextField Character 'xxx' not supported in font.

[Daniel Richard G.]

Binary package hint: nedit

This concerns nedit 1:5.5-2ubuntu3 in Intrepid.

I open Nedit, hit Ctrl+O to open a new file, click on a filename in the horrid Motif "Open File" dialog, and press OK. Instead of opening the new file, an error window pops up over the dialog: "Please select a file to open". I try again, and again, and even as the filename is clearly highlighted and selected, the error recurs. Thus I am prevented from opening a new file in the editor.

While I'm clicking around in the file dialog, I also see these messages being dumped to the console:
--------
    Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\122' not supported in font. Discarded.

    Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\105' not supported in font. Discarded.

    Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\104' not supported in font. Discarded.

    Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\111' not supported in font. Discarded.

    Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\124' not supported in font. Discarded.

    Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\123' not supported in font. Discarded.
--------

Very bizarre, since those character numbers seem to be referring to normal ASCII letters. You'd think no font (outside of Wingdings-like oddballs) would have trouble supporting those.

This error does not always occur. On occasion, the file dialog will operate correctly, for as many times until the program exits.

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and helping to make
Ubuntu better.

> I open Nedit, hit Ctrl+O to open a new file, click on a filename in the
> horrid Motif "Open File" dialog, and press OK. Instead of opening the
> new file, an error window pops up over the dialog: "Please select a file
> to open". I try again, and again, and even as the filename is clearly
> highlighted and selected, the error recurs. Thus I am prevented from
> opening a new file in the editor.

Unfortunately I can not reproduce your bug. Maybe it would help if you
could attach a screenshot of the situation when the opening fails.

Paul

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

Hi Paul,

Attached is a screenshot more or less illustrating the error. NEdit was invoked from the terminal (the errors are too numerous to fit even in that tall window), and gives an error dialog attempting to open start.html.

Note that the X/Motif errors begin as soon as you hit Ctrl+O, and then you only get the open-file error when preceded by those errors. Could you try starting NEdit several times, hitting Ctrl+O at each turn? The problem doesn't occur consistently, but it shouldn't be so infrequent. (I get it roughly every three out of four attempts here.)

[mark_a_kessler (mark-a-kessler)]

Hi Paul,
I just thought I would mention that I also get this error, and have been getting it for several months.

Like Daniel said, it does not always happen. I just tried it twice on the same file and got the error once and not the other time. However, it is repeatable in a single nedit session, meaning that it always happens in that session if it once happens in that session.

I run Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-11-generic. Is there anything I could do to help track this down?

-mark

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

Hi Mark, Daniel,

Mark, do you also get the
"""
Name: Text
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\111' not supported in font. Discarded.
"""
error?

Daniel, do you also get the error when you can normally open the file?

Paul

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

According to comment number 3:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nedit/+bug/309163/comments/3

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

> Daniel, do you also get the error when you can normally open the file?

So far, no. The error messages, and being able to open the file normally, are mutually exclusive.

[mark_a_kessler (mark-a-kessler)]

Paul, I get a bunch of errors that all look like this with different numbers. I don't see 111 right now, but it might show up other times.

Name: FilterText
    Class: XmTextField
    Character '\145' not supported in font. Discarded.

-mark

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

I am working on an updated package of nedit. It is available at my PPA
[1]. I have not investigated this bug specifically, but there is a
release candidate of the new upstream release available. Would you mind
testing that version and see if it fixes this bug?

With kind regards,
Paul

[1] https://launchpad.net/~paul-climbing/+archive/ppa

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

Paul,

I can't reproduce the problem with this new build, but... it's linked against Lesstif, instead of the OpenMotif library. That changes things completely---and the upstream doesn't seem too fond of the idea, as the program prints

    nedit: WARNING: This version of NEdit is built incorrectly, and will be unstable.
    nedit: Please get a stable version of NEdit from http://www.nedit.org.

on the terminal every time it starts up.

As I recall, the NEdit folks don't like to use Lesstif because the program makes heavy use of the Motif API, and Lesstif's subtle differences with "official" Motif are a source of headaches that they'd rather not deal with. I'd like to think that Lesstif has evolved to the point where even these kinds of uber-Motif apps can use it without a problem, but that's a determination that can only be made with a lot of careful review and validation. I'm hoping that this change isn't being made willy-nilly---as much as I'd love for NEdit to use all free-software libraries, there are long-standing technical reasons why this is not (yet) the case.

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

> I can't reproduce the problem with this new build, but... it's linked
> against Lesstif, instead of the OpenMotif library.

As far as I can tell, I didn't change things there. Yes, it is build
using LessTif, but that was supposed to be the case with older versions
as well. I will investigate tonight (CET). (see also below)

> That changes things completely---and the upstream doesn't seem too
> fond of the idea, as the program prints
>
> nedit: WARNING: This version of NEdit is built incorrectly, and will
> be unstable. nedit: Please get a stable version of NEdit from
> http://www.nedit.org.

I know, I had to tweak things in the build parameters. I will see if I
can take out that warning (which was also done in the 5.5 version). The
5.5 Nedit just didn't know about version 0.95 of lesstif and accepted
that version. Nedit 5.6 does throw the warning. As far as I can tell
they included lesstif 0.95 mainly because of bug 124573 [1], which I
intend to work on heavily the next coming time. I am also reading nedit
upstreams mail lists and documentation.

> As I recall, the NEdit folks don't like to use Lesstif because the
> program makes heavy use of the Motif API, and Lesstif's subtle
> differences with "official" Motif are a source of headaches that
> they'd rather not deal with.

Agreed.

> I'd like to think that Lesstif has evolved to the point where even
> these kinds of uber-Motif apps can use it without a problem, but
> that's a determination that can only be made with a lot of careful
> review and validation. I'm hoping that this change isn't being made
> willy-nilly---as much as I'd love for NEdit to use all free- software
> libraries, there are long-standing technical reasons why this is not
> (yet) the case.

As far as I can tell (but correct me if I am wrong) it has been the
strategy in Debian (and thus (?) in Ubuntu) to build against lesstif.
And yes, lesstif needs some love, which I am also trying to give to it
in the near future (see my PPA as well).

Paul

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lesstif2/+bug/124573

[bruce (to-vinca)]

I have also encountered precisely this problem with Nedit in 8.10. What is particularly vexing is that the problem manifests in different ways in different contexts. Sometimes the Open dialog does seem to work correctly, sometimes it gets caught in the "Please select a file" loop, sometimes the dialog opens blank, with no files or directories listed so one can't even get to the selection action. Always, it seems to issue some sort of cryptic Motif (?) complaint about Class:XmTextField and "Character '\...' ... not supported font." When it has worked correctly, it has been on occasions when it was launched from a panel icon and not by command line in a terminal, though it does not ALWAYS work when launched from the panel. It does always (so far) allow selection of files from the "Open previous" dialog, however. With that, I have been able to limp along.

Without a workaround that is functional consistently from from one machine boot-up to the next, from one usage context to the next, Nedit is really not very usable. Given that Nedit is an top-notch editor for people working with text files, and that it has been absolutely reliable on multiple architectures for many years in my experience, this bug in Ubuntu 8.10 is very disappointing.

Please put some priority on figuring out and fixing this one.

[bruce (to-vinca)]

I should have added a big TIA at the end of my message. And I wish I had seen the dialog between Paul and Daniel before adding my $.02 with that message, because it is now apparent that this is getting attention from people smarter than me! Before entering my comments, I had only seen the initial report from Daniel and the "unassigned" status.

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

Just want to let you know, I made improvements to lesstif2 (which is now in Debian; sync request for Ubuntu in bug 369383). I hope that I will come up with an improved version of nedit tonight or somewhere this weekend. I will include them in my PPA [1]. When testing is successful, you could figure out if this warrants a SRU [2].

[1] https://launchpad.net/~paul-climbing/+archive/ppa
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

For Jaunty and Intrepid lesstif2 and nedit are in new versions in my PPA, please test. I would be very good if this problem goes away by it.

Reading through the document in my last comment I don't think the package qualifies for a SRU, but instead we might try a backport [1]. Please let me know if you consider this necessary.

[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

I found a bug report in upstream openmotif with a bug that resembles this bug very much. Most likely the problem in the motif library. Patch available there.

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

Bugreport upstream: http://bugs.motifzone.net/show_bug.cgi?id=1257

[Paul Gevers (paul-climbing)]

The FAQ [1] on the nedit website gives a workaround: start nedit with LD_PRELOAD set to /lib/libBrokenLocale.so.1
e.g.
$ LD_PRELOAD=/lib/libBrokenLocale.so.1 nedit

[1] http://nedit.hackvalue.nl/niki/index.php/NEdit_FAQ/bugs#When_I_try_to_open_a_file_from_the_.22Open.22_dialog_nothing_appears_in_the_.22Filter.22_textfield._Instead.2C_I_get_repeated_message_like:

[Graham Inggs (ginggs)]

Package openmotif (2.3.3-5ubuntu1) was included in Natty (11.04).