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SJ

Member

Registered: 2017-12-25

Posts: 17

[Solved] Firefox does not display all icons

I'm using noto fonts with firefox. On certain webpages some icons are not displayed correctly.
See for example https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-design
The repository view should have a file or directory icon in front of the entries, for me only a square with F07B is displayed.
The same page is displayed correctly in chromium though.

Last edited by SJ (2020-03-31 15:20:42)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,647

Website

Re: [Solved] Firefox does not display all icons

Those are not icons. Those are characters in the Private Use Area. Since they should never appear in public space, formally there is no “correct way” to display them and if you see a box with F07B inside it’s as good as anything else.

However, in practice some web designers — and this is a growing trend — use PUAs to convey pictures by placing them in custom typefaces, which then are fetched by the browser when needed (not installed on the target system) and used to display pictures represented as characters. In this case most likely the typeface used is Font Awesome. If the typeface can’t be downloaded, you will see gibberish like that.

There are multiple reasons for this to fail, but three most likely caues:

• Network connectivity issues: either the typeface or the CSS defining it can’t be downloaded, because the network misbehaves.

• Misconfiguration of the server(s)/website: missing resources, rejecting connections, invalid CORS configuration, expired certificates and so on.

• Using addons/software that protect your privacy: they may shield you by blocking a request that is required to obtain the typeface.

• Having configuration or addons that permit you to taking back control over how website is displayed: they may cause the typeface to be ignored.

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Paperclips in avatars?

SJ

Member

Registered: 2017-12-25

Posts: 17

Re: [Solved] Firefox does not display all icons

ublock was set to block remote fonts. Disabling this option brought back the characters (or code points, if we're being exact here). Thanks.