Desktop: all black text has color "bleeding"

[Tom Wolf]

A couple days ago I installed Ubuntu 9.04 fresh (I had 8.10 and prior versions running on same laptop before). After I began using the new version, I noticed that much of the text had oddly colored shadows (see attachment) - i.e. black text seems to be "bleeding" other colors. This didn't exist in Ubuntu 8.10.

This bleeding is most pronounced in Firefox and Thunderbird. Perhaps they are using different font rendering "engines"?

I'm running on a Dell Latitude D820 with nvidia driver 180.44. I have a dual head setup (external Dell 2007FP and laptop screen) using TwinView. But the discoloring happens on both screens and also when I don't have the second screen connected.
The NVidia card is a Quadro NVS 110M - according to the NVIDIA X Server settings program. If I can provide any further info, please let me know.

I also see this bleeding after disabling the NVIDIA driver, so maybe it's the x server? Or is my video card messed up? If it's the latter, it's an odd coincidence that it should happen right after the 9.04 install :-( Also, if it was the video card, then wouldn't my attached screenshot NOT show the problem?

Finally, I also went into the System->Preferences->Appeareance-Fonts and changed Rendering to "Monochrome" - but that didn't have any effect on Firefox/Thunderbird (further confirming that they don't use the system for rendering?)

[Steve72 (stephen-wilkey)]

I have just installed 9.04 on an HP Omnibook XE3 which has an Intel graphics card. It is experiencing the same problem. When I first start it I can open a terminal window or firefox and read it fine, but after a short while it becomes less and less readable. The text initially bleeds to some letters being on a grey background and a little fuzzy around the edges, and gradually becomes blue and unreadable (no longer text).

Like Tom describes, other applications display fine, but these ones become very bad. I have attached a picture for you.

[Tom Wolf (tjwolf)]

Wow, this is pretty terrible - must be something different than what I
experienced. My "shadows" were always there (i.e. it didn't get worse) and
it was only like 1 pixel width. Also, I no longer have the problem after
following the advice someone gave of putting the following .fonts.conf in my
$HOME directory:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit mode="assign" name="lcdfilter">
      <const>lcddefault</const>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
      <const>rgb</const>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle" >
      <const>hintfull</const>
    </edit>
    <edit mode="assign" name="antialias" >
      <bool>true</bool>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>

That worked for me.
tom

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Steve72 <email address hidden> wrote:

> I have just installed 9.04 on an HP Omnibook XE3 which has an Intel
> graphics card. It is experiencing the same problem. When I first start
> it I can open a terminal window or firefox and read it fine, but after a
> short while it becomes less and less readable. The text initially
> bleeds to some letters being on a grey background and a little fuzzy
> around the edges, and gradually becomes blue and unreadable (no longer
> text).
>
> Like Tom describes, other applications display fine, but these ones
> become very bad. I have attached a picture for you.
>
>
> ** Attachment added: "Screen shot of a terminal window showing the problem"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/29094612/Screenshot.png
>
> --
> Desktop: all black text has color "bleeding"
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/369275
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> A couple days ago I installed Ubuntu 9.04 fresh (I had 8.10 and prior
> versions running on same laptop before). After I began using the new
> version, I noticed that much of the text had oddly colored shadows (see
> attachment) - i.e. black text seems to be "bleeding" other colors. This
> didn't exist in Ubuntu 8.10.
>
> This bleeding is most pronounced in Firefox and Thunderbird. Perhaps they
> are using different font rendering "engines"?
>
> I'm running on a Dell Latitude D820 with nvidia driver 180.44. I have a
> dual head setup (external Dell 2007FP and laptop screen) using TwinView. But
> the discoloring happens on both screens and also when I don't have the
> second screen connected.
> The NVidia card is a Quadro NVS 110M - according to the NVIDIA X Server
> settings program. If I can provide any further info, please let me know.
>
> I also see this bleeding after disabling the NVIDIA driver, so maybe it's
> the x server? Or is my video card messed up? If it's the latter, it's an
> odd coincidence that it should happen right after the 9.04 install :-(
> Also, if it was the video card, then wouldn't my attached screenshot NOT
> show the problem?
>
> Finally, I also went into the System->Preferences->Appeareance-Fonts and
> changed Rendering to "Monochrome" - but that didn't have an...

[ooze (zoe-gauthier)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. I think this bug has been fixed in the current stable release Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Can you test it with the live environment of the Desktop CD to see if it is reproducible? Thanks in advance!

[Tom Wolf (tjwolf)]

Hi Philippe,
I don't have the 10.04 Desktop CD around, but I upgraded my 9.10 release to 10.04 a couple weeks ago. When I remove the above-mentioned .fonts.conf from my $HOME and restart the machine, I still see the shadows. I'm attaching a screenshot with this comment. I will provide a second screenshot with .fonts.conf re-introduced to my $HOME with another comment.

[Tom Wolf (tjwolf)]

Hi again,
I am providing this second screenshot with .fonts.conf re-introduced to my $HOME/. As you can see, there's no "bleeding" going on now - vs. the previous screenshot (without the .fonts.conf).

[Tom Wolf (tjwolf)]

Just in case the 'bleeding' isn't obvious: look at the 'M' in $HOME in both the screenshots. The first bleeds a bluish color all around the 'M'. The second screenshot does not.

[ooze (zoe-gauthier)]

I think we will need a thiird opinion on this because I change the font rendering on my computer *not* to have any hinting, and you seem to prefer it with full hinting. The default is just in the middle, which causes too much fuzziness for you, but it's not smooth enough for me :) I will let this bug open to see if someone else has an idea what to do next.

Instead of using a .fonts.conf file, you can use the Appearance preferences as it controls the same settings. If you want to make sure to reset to the default font rendering settings, you can run the following command in the Terminal:

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /desktop/gnome/font_rendering

[Tom Wolf (tjwolf)]

I moved .fonts.conf to somewhere else, ran gconftool-2 as you suggested and restarted the machine. When I brought up Firefox, the letters had the same rainbow/bleeding effect (it's not causing me "fuzziness" - which to me implies that the edges are just not sharp enough - it's just that the wrong colors seem to be used in the font "smoothing"). I then went into System->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts and went into the "Details" on the selected "Subpixel smoothing (LCD)" and changed the hinting to "Full". But that had no detectable effect on the halo effect. See the screenshot of my URL bar in firefox - the 'halo' is clearly visible, once again.

I then put my .fonts.conf back into $HOME, restarted, and took another screenshot of the same area - 'halo' is gone.

Interestingly, when I go to the Appearance Preference again, the Rendering is actually "Monochrome"?? and hinting is at "Full".

I know that before the ".fonts.conf" workaround - i.e. before Ubuntu 9.04, I always had subpixel smoothing (LCD) rendering.

[Tom Wolf (tjwolf)]

Here's the second firefox url bar screenshot with .fonts.conf back in place.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Tom,

What happens if instead of changing .font.conf or Appearance settings you create a new user? Is there bleeding in this case?

We need to be certain this is not caused by another piece of configuration elsewhere.

Also, please make sure your nvidia driver is at the latest version available. Finally, does the bleeding change or get worse over time?

[Andrej Mernik (r33d3m33r-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi, I just wan't to report that this bug is still present in Ubuntu 10.04. I'm using Radeon HD 4670, Catalyst 10.8 and a LCD monitor. The fix posted in comment <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fontconfig/+bug/369275/comments/3">#3</a> worked, but now the text is harder to read.

I also don't know what settings are in use, because Appearance Preferences > Fonts has minuses in the radio boxes, like seen <a href="http://blog.hawn.be/tag/ubuntu-fonts-msttcorefonts-microsoft-fonts-tahoma-arial-times-new-roman/">here</a>.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for fontconfig (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]