xpdf warnings "Cannot convert string * to type FontStruct"

[ilf]

Binary package hint: xpdf

Starting xpdf (3.02-1.4ubuntu2) in an up-to-date Karmic from a terminal outputs the following to the terminal:

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-courier-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-times-bold-i-normal--20-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-times-medium-r-normal--16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

I googled around, but cannot find the cause of this.
Older reports of this problem had wrong or missing font paths in /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc or /etc/X11/xorg.conf. But these seem all right for me.

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

should be fixed in 3.02-9

[ilf (ilf)]

No, it's not.

Not only does it still output 2 of those 4 messages:

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-courier-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

It also fails to start with a "Floating point exception".

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

do you have gsfonts and/or gsfonts-x11 installed?

[ilf (ilf)]

Was missing gsfonts-x11.
But even with both installed, I get the same error with 3.02-9, and it refuses to start.

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

how about poppler-data?

is this for a specific file, or all files?

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

what does your /etc/xpdfrc look like?

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

oops, i mean /etc/xpdf/xpdfrc

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

what does your /etc/X11/xorg.conf look like? is anything here useful:
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads/5102-Strange-X-Font-problems.-Please-help!

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

also take a look at:
http://bugs.debian.org/366347

[ilf (ilf)]

Ah, with both "gsfonts-x11" and "poppler-data" installed, the "Warning" messages go away.
I think the .deb should suggest these two. Right now they are nowhere mentioned.

Through your links I came to this site suggesting the problem lies upstream: http://zinser.no-ip.info/vms/sw/notes/xpdf.htmlx

"The following issues were reported by OpenVMS users of Xpdf. They are acknowledged by the author of Xpdf and should be resolved during the next couple of maintenance releases

During startup of Xpdf the message Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-times-medium-r-normal--16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct is displayed
    This message can be safely ignored. This particular font is used only inside of the "About" window of Xpdf. It will be replaced in there by a default font. The display of PDF documents is not affected at all by this.
    The solution will make the font settable via an Xresource.
    The same behaviour can be observed on Linux systems."

But 3.02-9 fails to start with "Floating point exception" no matter what I try.
Should I file a new bug on this?

[Michael Gilbert (michael-s-gilbert)]

possibly. which version of poppler do you have installed? i think i saw somewhere that 0.14 went into maverick, which has a different API than 0.12, which would lead to this. if you have the new poppler, a different bug should be filed about the incompatible api changes between 0.12 and 0.14.

[Bartek (bartekastro)]

When opening any pdf file xpdf crashes, when I open by terminal I got those errors:

$ xpdf
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-courier-medium-r-normal--12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-times-bold-i-normal--20-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-times-medium-r-normal--16-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1" to type FontStruct