Font rendering problem in Gecko based applications

[Noumaan Yaqoob]

I read plenty of Urdu web pages each day. When I was using Breezy I had no trouble viewing Urdu web pages or editing my files in Urdu. But in Dapper I am having many problems:

1. All web browsers based on Gecko totally ignore the Urdu fonts. I have added fonts in .fonts, /usr/share/fonts and fonts:/// folders. Used fc-cache and followed instructions ubuntu-desktop guide many times. but still no browser not even thunderbird would display them.

2. Konqueror displays the same pages correctly.

3. When I installed microsoft fonts including Tahoma these browsers display Urdu web pages in msfonts because Tahoma is what urdu webmasters use on their pages as the last font option. Even Tahoma is not rendered properly in Gecko based browsers and applications.

3. I can write in urdu using gEdit which recognizes the Urdu fonts but it is unable to render them properly.

I have installed language-support-ur, language-pack-ur, language-pack-ur-base, language-pack-gnome-ur, language-pack-gnome-ur-base. But I am still unable to read urdu webpages. I tried forcing firefox by adding Urdu fonts in Preferences > Content > fonts & colors > Advanced. I even unchecked the box "allow pages to chose their own fonts". But still firefox wouldn't display these pages in urdu fonts.

Urdu fonts that I am using are:
Nafees Web Naskh
http://www.crulp.org/nafeesWebNaskh.html

Urdu Naskh Asiatype
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/fontinstall/popupwin.shtml to install this font I install it on windows and copy paste it in ubuntu.

Tahoma and msttcorefonts.

[Bugzilla-tecnocode (bugzilla-tecnocode)]

Can you provide some screenshots demonstrating this? (i.e. One in Windows with the font working, and one in Linux without it working.)

[Jessbody (jessbody)]

This is FF/windows XP: http://geocities.com/urdutext/gnwn.png

This is Konqueror/Linux: http://geocities.com/urdutext/kon.png

This is FF/Linux: http://geocities.com/urdutext/foxcu.png
Here the FF automatically substitutes fonts (clearlyU in the screenshot). These results are for Slackware 10, X Release 6.7.

Recently, Shariq (<email address hidden>) has informed me that FF on the latest Ubuntu 6 does render the "Nafees Web Naskh" fonts correctly. He has provided these screen shots: http://www.chirah.com/boriat/temp/ubuntu_lin_nafees.jpg , which show correct rendering. Ubuntu 6 uses the very latest X and this might be the reason.

[Smontagu (smontagu)]

Can you paste in here the output of about:buildconfig in the copy of Firefox where the fonts are not working?

[Jessbody (jessbody)]

Here is the about:buildconfig of standard FF binary downloaded from mozilla, where the rendering problem occurs:

Build platform
target
i686-pc-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc gcc version 3.3.2 20031022 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.2-1) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pedantic -pthread -pipe
c++ gcc version 3.3.2 20031022 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.2-1) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-long-long -pedantic -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe -I/usr/X11R6/include

Configure arguments
--enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-update-packaging --disable-debug '--enable-optimize=-Os -freorder-blocks -fno-reorder-functions -gstabs+' --disable-tests --enable-official-branding --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2 --enable-xft --disable-freetype2 --enable-svg --enable-canvas --enable-static --disable-shared

[Shariqmus (shariqmus)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Can you paste in here the output of about:buildconfig in the copy of Firefox
> where the fonts are not working?
>

Here is a buildconfig of firefox 1.5.0.1 running on Linux (Ubuntu 6.04, Dapper Drake!). Here Nafees is rendered correctly.

about:buildconfig

Build platform
target
i686-pc-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc gcc version 4.0.3 20060115 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.2-7ubuntu1) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pthread -pipe
c++ gcc version 4.0.3 20060115 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.2-7ubuntu1) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-long-long -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe

Configure arguments
--prefix=/usr '--mandir=${prefix}/share/man' '--infodir=${prefix}/share/info' --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2 --with-default-mozilla-five-home=/usr/lib/firefox --enable-pango --with-user-appdir=.mozilla --with-system-png=/usr --with-system-jpeg=/usr --disable-mailnews --disable-composer --disable-ldap --enable-postscript --disable-installer --disable-xprint --enable-crypto --enable-strip-libs --enable-canvas --enable-svg --enable-svg-renderer=cairo --enable-system-cairo --enable-mathml --disable-tests --disable-gtktest --disable-debug --enable-xft '--enable-optimize=-pipe\ -w\ -O2' --with-system-zlib=/usr --without-system-nspr --enable-xinerama --enable-extensions=default --disable-pedantic --disable-long-long-warning --enable-single-profile --disable-profilesharing --enable-gnomevfs --enable-application=browser --disable-installer --disable-updater

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

I read plenty of Urdu web pages each day. When I was using Breezy I had no trouble viewing Urdu web pages or editing my files in Urdu. But in Dapper I am having many problems:

1. All web browsers totally ignore the Urdu fonts. I have added fonts in .fonts, /usr/share/fonts and fonts:/// folders. Used fc-cache and followed instructions ubuntu-desktop guide many times. but still No browser not even thunderbird would display them.

2. When I installed microsoft fonts including Tahoma these browsers display Urdu web pages in msfonts because Tahoma is what urdu webmasters use on their pages as the last font option.

3. I can write in urdu using gEdit which recognizes the Urdu fonts but it is unable to render them properly.

I have installed language-support-ur, language-pack-ur, language-pack-ur-base, language-pack-gnome-ur, language-pack-gnome-ur-base. But I am still unable to read urdu webpages. I tried forcing firefox by adding Urdu fonts in Preferences > Content > fonts & colors > Advanced. I even unchecked the box "allow pages to chose their own fonts". But still firefox wouldn't display these pages in urdu fonts.

Urdu fonts that I am using are:
Nafees Web Naskh
http://www.crulp.org/nafeesWebNaskh.html

Urdu Naskh Asiatype
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/fontinstall/popupwin.shtml to install this font I install it on windows and copy paste it in ubuntu.

Tahoma and msttcorefonts.

[True_Friend (muhammadshakir2002)]

I have also experienced same problem in breezy every thing was alright about unicode urdu ( in firefox) but in DD it is very bad. Firefox is displaying urdu in a very bad manner but konqourer is alright about urdu. So the problem is in firefox not in the system. Could develpors see this problem in some update??

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

Further investigation in this matter reveals that This problem occurs in all programs that use Gecko rendering engine like firefox, epiphany, thunderbird,etc. Same urdu pages when viewed with Konqueror rendered properly. It displayed all Urdu pages correctly with the fonts described in the webpage's style sheet.

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

This problem doesn't occur in Galeon which is another Gecko based browser.

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

I installed Breezy on another partition. Breezy didn't has this problem so firefox that came by default with Breezy installation CD worked fine with Urdu fonts. but Epiphany which I downloaded and installed showed the same symptoms that we are seeing in Dapper.

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Can you paste in here the output of about:buildconfig in the copy of Firefox
> where the fonts are not working?
>

I am using Epiphany and Firefox on Ubuntu Breezy and Dapper. In Dapper both browsers do not render Nafees Web Naskh. In Breezy Firefox renders Nafees Web Naskh but Epiphany does not. I am pasting both buildconfig from both:

Firefox:
=======
Build platform
target
i686-pc-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc gcc version 4.0.2 20050808 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.1-4ubuntu9) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pthread -pipe
c++ gcc version 4.0.2 20050808 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.1-4ubuntu9) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-long-long -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe

Configure arguments
--prefix=/usr '--mandir=${prefix}/share/man' '--infodir=${prefix}/share/info' --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2 --with-default-mozilla-five-home=/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox --with-user-appdir=.mozilla --with-system-mng=/usr --with-system-png=/usr --with-system-jpeg=/usr --disable-mailnews --disable-composer --disable-ldap --enable-postscript --disable-installer --disable-xprint --enable-crypto --disable-svg --enable-mathml --disable-tests --disable-gtktest --enable-xft '--enable-optimize=-pipe\ -w\ -O2\ -DDEBIAN\ -fno-strict-aliasing' --with-system-zlib=/usr --with-gssapi=/usr --without-system-nspr --enable-xinerama --enable-extensions=cookie,xml-rpc,xmlextras,pref,transformiix,universalchardet,webservices,inspector,gnomevfs,negotiateauth,typeaheadfind --disable-pedantic --disable-long-long-warning --enable-single-profile --disable-profilesharing --enable-gnomevfs --enable-pango --enable-svg-renderer-cairo --disable-strip-libs --disable-debug

Epiphany:
==========
about:buildconfig

Build platform
target
i686-pc-linux-gnu

Build tools
Compiler Version Compiler flags
gcc gcc version 4.0.2 20050808 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.1-4ubuntu9) -Wall -W -Wno-unused -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Wno-long-long -pthread -pipe
c++ gcc version 4.0.2 20050808 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.1-4ubuntu9) -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -Wconversion -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Woverloaded-virtual -Wsynth -Wno-ctor-dtor-privacy -Wno-non-virtual-dtor -Wno-long-long -fshort-wchar -pthread -pipe

Configure arguments
--prefix=/usr '--mandir=${prefix}/share/man' '--infodir=${prefix}/share/info' --enable-default-toolkit=gtk2 --with-default-mozilla-five-home=/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox --with-user-appdir=.mozilla --with-system-mng=/usr --with-system-png=/usr --with-system-jpeg=/usr --disable-mailnews --disable-composer --disable-ldap --enable-postscript --disable-installer --disable-xprint --enable-crypto --disable-svg --enable-mathml --disable-tests --disable-gtktest --enable-xft '--enable-optimize=-pipe\ -w\ -O2\ -DDEBIAN\ -fno-strict-aliasing' --with-system-zlib=/usr --with-gssapi=/usr --without-system-nspr --enable-xinerama --enable-extensions=cookie,xml-rpc,xmlextras,pref,transformiix,universalchardet,webservices,inspector,gnomevfs,negotiateauth,typeaheadfind --disable-pedantic --disab...

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

It seems that In Ubuntu Firefox Pango support is enabled for selective locales only. Adding the line:

MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0

in /etc/environment

has resolved the problem for me and now I can see the Web pages in Urdu displayed with perfect font rendering.

But this isn't the solution to the problem because now I will have to tell people that they need to add this line in order to view Urdu web pages on firefox. These are the people I am trying to convince to use Ubuntu and they wouldn't like this idea. Also adding the above line had a reverse effect on Galeon web browser which showed no symptoms of the bug but after adding this line Firefox works fine but Galeon has inherited the issue.

[Volkmarkostka (volkmarkostka)]

Latest info from http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=452514 :
I found a temporary solution to the problem. It seems that my linux distro Ubuntu Dapper decided to use Pango support for selective locales only. Adding MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0 in /etc/environment has resolved the problem at my end.

The problem still remains valid it seems like many Linux distros are distributing firefox with pango support enabled for selective localed only. as you can see in the bug report that this problem was found in Fedora, Slackware and Ubuntu.

Does anyone have more informations about this?

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

Applying the above solution to firefox creates major performance issues:

1. Firefox becomes slower, consuming 100% cpu at times and crashes quite often.

2. Galeon starts rendering Urdu pages incorrectly after applying the above solution.

Our problem seems related to the patch applied for the bug <a href="https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/32561">#32561</a>. Now if we apply the MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0 we would be using a slower Firefox with frequent crashes and work loss and If we don't apply this solution we wont be able to view Urdu pages properly.

I should have added the attachments at the time of reporting the bug but at that time I was unaware of how bug tracking systems work. So here I am attaching a File displaying Epiphany displaying <a href="http://www.urduweb.org/mehfil">Urdu Mehfil</a> with Pango support enabled and Firefox displaying the same page without Pango support.

[towsonu2003 (towsonu2003)]

oops

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i would like to see a tester to confirm that this issue still exists in recent firefox versions (>=2.0)

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

I installed Ubuntu Feisty and we still need to add

MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0

in /etc/environment

in order to properly view Urdu pages. I don't think it is a bug, because it is a decission made by the Ubuntu developers to disable pango in Firefox shipped with Ubuntu. I installed Debian Etch and using iceweasel 2.0.3 which works fine without adding anything anywhere. I do not notice any significant performance issues on Debian iceweasel where pango support is enabled by default.

One possible solution for the problem is that when a user installs any urdu related language page, or the font ttf-nafees Ubuntu automatically enables pango support. However with pango Ubuntu's firefox is really very slow even a non tech guy like me can tell the difference between iceweasel and ubuntu's firefox without doing any speed or performance tests.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

is this bug fixed in gutsy firefox?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

gedit is not using gecko

[Simos Xenitellis  (simosx)]

You can enable Pango in a systemwide fashion (for Firefox), by adding

MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0

in /etc/firefox/firefoxrc

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

gedit is not using gecko

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

is this still an issue for firefox/thunderbird in gutsy final?

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

Yes it was for me. Somehow the font settings weren't being applied to Firefox; I tinkered with them some and then it worked fine.

I don't have the steps for it though, sorry.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Would be cool to test if you can reproduce this on a gutsy livecd.

Thanks,
 - Alexander

[Noumaan Yaqoob (noumaan)]

I had problems with Urdu font rendering. We used to set pango enabled
in /etc/environment to get it work but with gutsy when we didnt need
to do that.

Noumaan

On Nov 7, 2007 3:01 AM, Alexander Sack <email address hidden> wrote:
> Would be cool to test if you can reproduce this on a gutsy livecd.
>
> Thanks,
> - Alexander
>
>
> --
> Font rendering problem in Gecko based applications
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/54091
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

The LiveCD seemed to have my graphics settings configured differently, because I couldn't get Compiz working in it.

But anyway here's a screenshot I took - http://fgwr3243r.googlepages.com/Screenshot-fonts.png but unfortunately I couldn't tell if the fonts were right or no... maybe I just got used to them?

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Has this issue been fixed in your Firefox of Firefox at this time.2.0.0.0-3.0 rc1?
This wont be fixed in < 2.0 due to EOLS, if this is fixced in 2.0 can we close this bug please. I am unable to access such tools at this time.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Is anyone still seeing this issue in firefox? If so please let me know what version of ubuntu and what version of firefox. Latest upstream comment other than me was in 2006 so it was most likely a dup of a bug that got fixed.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Is this still an issue for anyone?

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

[Jessbody (jessbody)]

The bug still exists in Slackware 12 with the latest Firefox (whether the FF is from slackware or directly from mozilla). Hacks like MOZ_ENABLE_PANGO=1 have no effect.

[L. David Baron (dbaron)]

What's your definition of "latest"? 2.0.0.14? 3.0b5? 3.0rc1? a nightly build (from which branch)?

[Jessbody (jessbody)]

I was referring to 2.0.0.14 in my last message. But just now I downloaded 3.0rc1 and viola, the "Nafees Web Naskh" font work beautifully, better than KDE apps which mess up some spacing between letters. So if there is no regression, the bug can be considered fixed as far as I can see (have tested on Slackware 12 only). Thanks very much!

[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

Last comment in upstream says it was fixed, please reopen if I got it wrong.

[Smontagu (smontagu)]

WORKSFORME per last comment.