xmgrace window font is not loaded correctly

[Alex Valavanis]

Binary package hint: grace

When starting xmgrace from the command line, I receive the warning message:

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

Xmgrace then opens and runs fine except the font used in the application window is incorrect. Please let me know how I can help to debug this. I know very little about font management!

(See screenshot)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: grace 1:5.1.22-8build1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.37-12.26-generic 2.6.37
Uname: Linux 2.6.37-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Jan 20 00:51:14 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100318)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: grace

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

No longer affects me. I guess we can reopen this if anyone else experiences the problem.

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

Confirmation from duplicate bug #773531

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

Hi Alex,
I have a clean installation of final release of ubuntu 11.04 (64 bit version) on some other machine. I have just found the same bug also on this clean 64-bit installation.
I must add two things:
* In the new installation I did not format user-space partition mounted on /home ; I formatted only remaining partitions mounted on / and swap.
* I am using the Ubuntu classic (no effects) environment.
Martin.

[Mauricio Sica (mp-sica)]

Hi all

I have the same problem. I'm using Ubuntu 11.04, unity.

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

Is there anything to do?
Thanks a lot

[Nicholas Breen (nbreen)]

Please try installing "gsfonts".

[Mauricio Sica (mp-sica)]

2011/5/9 Nicholas Breen <email address hidden>:
> Please try installing "gsfonts".

Thanks fo the help. Unfortunately I already have gconfs installed in
the most recent version, but the problem remains

Mauricio
 PS: I'm using ubuntu 11.04, unity

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

I also have ubuntu 11.04, 64-bit version (although not using unity). I do have gsfonts, now even gsfonts-other and gsfonts-x11 but the problem persists.

Martin.

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

After installation of the program gv, the warning messages and similar notifications no longer appear on terminal.

Unfortunatelly, the miserable fonts in Grace are still used. (This was not the case before Natty.)
There are even situations when it is impossible to correctly read out numbers which are shown in Grace console .
(Likely depending also on screen resolution but I am using typical good ones set automatically.)
Try for example to perform a linear regression and then try to read its output from Grace console.

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

I vaguely remember this problem starting when xfonts-100dpi and xfonts-75dpi were removed during an upgrade. Please could you try installing them and see what happens?

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

Nothing has changed in xmgrace behaviour after installation of
xfonts-100dpi
xfonts-75dpi
xfonts-100dpi-transcoded
xfonts-75dpi-transcoded
xfonts-biznet-100dpi
xfonts-biznet-75dpi

My previous comment (the one concerning gv) comes from my observation on a 64-b it ubuntu 11.04.
My current comment comes from 32-bit ubuntu 11.04. This latter system is different in that that even if I have gv installed, the warning message
"Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" to type FontStruct"
still appears.
Even worse, when I start gv itself (on the 32-bit system), I am getting a lot of ugly messages (which I either did not perceived before or they were not appearing):

Warning: translation table syntax error: Unknown keysym name: apLineDel
Warning: ... found while parsing '<Key>apLineDel: GV_Page(page+5) '
Warning: String to TranslationTable conversion encountered errors
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-140-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-100-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Bold-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct

[Martin Konôpka (martin.konopka)]

The problem with fonts in Natty displays itself also when several other applications are started, not only Xmgrace.

In particular, when I start the OpenDX visualisation program using the command "dx", I can see a whole bunch of nasty messages spammed on the screen:

XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--12-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--14-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--10-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--20-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--10-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--14-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--20-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal--10-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal--14-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal--20-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct
XtWarning: Cannot convert string "-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal--12-*iso8859-1" to type FontStruct

I am using 64-bit version of ubuntu 11.04, the classical GNOME (no effects) interface.

[Igor Dikiy (idikiy)]

Hey all.
I had this same problem running xmgrace on my Wubi in Windows 7 (64bit). But I just recently upgraded a bunch of packages and it went away.Attached is a lost of the upgrades that I think were responsible. I don't know exactly which it was. Good luck.

[Malte Thoma (malte-thoma)]

Installing Ubuntu 11.10 from scratch results in the

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-140-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
[ and many more] bug when >gv< is started.

Is there any fix available?

Regards,
Malte

[MarkWayne (pb120669)]

>Martin Konopka (martin.konopka) wrote on 2011-05-19: #11

>Nothing has changed in xmgrace behaviour after installation of
>xfonts-100dpi
>xfonts-75dpi
>xfonts-100dpi-transcoded
>xfonts-75dpi-transcoded

Actually, this worked for me:

Release 11.10 (oneiric)
Kernel Linux 3.0.0-14-generic
GNOME 3.2.1
64-bit; gnome shell

In particular, I think it was the 75dpi fonts that were needed.

Be sure to restart X: ALT+PrtScrn/SysRq+k after 'sudo apt-get install xfonts-XXX'

[Taizo Shibuya (taizo-shibuya)]

>MarkWayne (pb120669) wrote on 2012-01-18: #15

>>Martin Konopka (martin.konopka) wrote on 2011-05-19: #11

>>Nothing has changed in xmgrace behaviour after installation of
>>xfonts-100dpi
>>xfonts-75dpi
>>xfonts-100dpi-transcoded
>>xfonts-75dpi-transcoded

>Actually, this worked for me:

>Release 11.10 (oneiric)
>Kernel Linux 3.0.0-14-generic
>GNOME 3.2.1
>64-bit; gnome shell

>In particular, I think it was the 75dpi fonts that were needed.

>Be sure to restart X: ALT+PrtScrn/SysRq+k after 'sudo apt-get install xfonts-XXX'

Thank you very much! You are completely right for me.
Only I needed was xfonts-75dpi.

Release 11.10
Kernel Linux 3.0.0-17-generic
unity 4.28.0
32-bit

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

I also just tried installing xfonts-100dpi (without installing xfonts-75dpi) and restarting X and the problem goes away.

I suggest adding the following to debian/control:

Recommends: xfonts-100dpi | xfonts-75dpi

[Leandro (leandromartinez98)]

I'm using Mint 13, installed all the fonts suggested and the problem persists. I'm using the cinnamon interface.

[Leandro (leandromartinez98)]

I'm sorry. It did solve the problem. My fault. Ignore my previous post.

[Alex Valavanis (valavanisalex)]

Thanks Leandro.

This should be fixed in Ubuntu 12.10 after importing grace 1:5.1.22-13 from Debian.

[bjfcom (bjfcom)]

The status on gv says "new", but installing the fonts fixed both xmgrace and gv warnings for me.

Ubunut 12.04:
$ uname -a
Linux user 3.2.0-26-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 14 17:49:24 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Grace version is however (at least it says in package manager):
1:5.1.22-12

Thanks!

[Bruno Luciano Amadio Caires (bruno-amadio)]

I'm using ubuntu 12.10 64bits, installing "xfonts-100dpi*" "xfonts-75dpi*" solve my problem.

Thanks!