PDF content not rendering due to "some font thing failed", failed to load truetype font - important data silently left out

[Per Ångström]

Binary package hint: evince

I noticed that a PDF file I received from my accountant was surprisingly missing some important data when viewed in Evince, so I started Evince from the command line. I got an almost endless number of error messages:

Error: PDF file is damaged - attempting to reconstruct xref table...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: failed to load truetype font

I must say I'm utterly disgusted with Evince not displaying anything at all when encountering a font problem. Why not fall back to an existing font instead of silently suppressing the error?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: evince 2.32.0-0ubuntu1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-28.50-generic 2.6.35.11
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-28-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Jun 5 14:13:16 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
KernLog:

SourcePackage: evince

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for the report, could you please attach a test case to the report? thanks.

[Per Ångström (autark)]

Pedro Villavicencio wrote:
> Thanks for the report, could you please attach a test case to the
> report? thanks.
I'm sorry but the PDF in question contains financial data that I don't
wish to make public.

[Alex Peters (alex-peters)]

I have this problem with a publicly available PDF:

http://www.prasa.com/Documents/StockRenewal/5-1-MetrorailUserRequirementSpecification.pdf

but I don't get errors about "bad table definitions." Instead I see errors about being unable to load local fonts:

Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
...
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed

$ ls -l /home/lx/.fonts/arial{,bd}.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 lx root 352224 2007-11-13 17:50 /home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf
-rw-r--r-- 1 lx root 367112 2007-11-13 17:50 /home/lx/.fonts/arial.ttf

Both fonts open as expected in the font viewer.

The attached screen shot shows how the file renders. The UI itself reports no errors.

[Alex Peters (alex-peters)]

Please also note that the entire document renders as shown in the screen shot--that is, no page of the document is readable.

Perhaps a higher importance may be assigned in light of that.

[Alex Peters (alex-peters)]

This problem persists in Precise Beta 1, with all updates applied. Some documents remain completely unrendered.

$ evince TS_MUSIC\ LIST_960911.pdf
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arialbd.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font
...

[Robin.He (hechu)]

This bug also affected me. My system is Ubuntu 12.04 with most recently upgrade. Xfce 4.8 WM, both evince and okular have the same problem. You can try any of the PDF file which downloaded from here: http://australianetwork.com/studyenglish/s2780367.htm
such as this one: http://australianetwork.com/studyenglish/pdf/s1001_transcript.pdf

[Robin.He (hechu)]

I have same problem under ubuntu linux 12.04 with most recently upgrade. both evince and okular.

below is the log from start evince in console:

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/wqy/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

... ...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Mark Edgington (edgimar)]

The pdf in comment #8 renders ok for me -- using evince 3.4.0 / Ubuntu 12.04.

However, I am attaching a pdf file which does *not* render correctly (with several "some font thing failed" messages on the console). I guess this is a problem with poppler? (I'm currently using 0.18.4 of libpoppler-glib8) -- btw this PDF dumps core when opened with xpdf.

[agmt (quaker542-gmail)]

This is problem with apparmor.
I've solved this problem with adding line "/c/WINDOWS/Fonts/* r," to /etc/apparmor.d/usr.bin.evince .

[czil (theo-theostern)]

Hi, got the problem after a kernel update (?)

evince in the console shows many of this lines:

Bogus memory allocation size
Error: could not create truetype face

some font thing failed
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue...
Bogus memory allocation size
Error: could not create truetype face

what can I do?
my documents show lines, when I try to mark them, but no text at all. picts will be rendered.
may system: Version 12.04 (precise) (64-Bit

[maplain (maplainfly)]

i have ever met the same problem as Robin.He (hechu)'s:

some font thing failed
Error: Cannot open '/home/lx/.fonts/arial.ttf'
Error: failed to load truetype font

...

and i have solved it by

cd ~/.fonts/your_windows_fonts_dir/
sudo chmod 755 *

then everything is ok.
........

i have thought that's a big problem and it took me 70 minutes to settle it... but quite naive...

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Not reproducible in Trusty with first attached document (all URLs were unresolvable to a PDF).