[SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

samuelm · 2021-12-29 12:32:00

Hi guys,

I haven't been able to resolve this issue for a while, so Arch forums to the rescue.
I have a fresh install of Arch on my laptop that suffers from this issue: capital E is not rendered in Firefox on any webpage. There's just an empty space instead. I tried changing the font in OS settings and also forcing a certain font in Firefox itself. Did not help.

The DE is XFCE, intel integrated graphics.

these are my fc-match results:
xxxx@xxxx ~> fc-match "Sans Regular"
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"
xxxx@xxxx ~> fc-match "serif"
Heuristica-Regular.ttf: "Heuristica" "Regular"
xxxx@xxxx ~> fc-match "sans"
NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

and here are some screenshots:
https://imgur.com/a/1UZoOjA

Any ideas how to fix this?

Last edited by samuelm (2021-12-30 12:49:53)

Scimmia · 2021-12-29 12:48:40

First thing I would do is check your locale settings. The output of `locale` and `locale -a` may be helpful, as well as the settings in your DE if you've changed them.

samuelm · 2021-12-29 13:28:15

Everything is set to en_US.UTF-8, locale -a returns:

C
en_US.utf8
POSIX

Head_on_a_Stick · 2021-12-29 13:34:57

Does this only happen with Firefox?

Have you tried disabling the compositor?

If you're using xf86-video-intel then try removing it, X's builtin modesetting DDX driver is less buggy.

seth · 2021-12-29 15:41:33

Does it happen in the https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefox#Safe_Mode ?

samuelm · 2021-12-30 07:10:38

Safe mode and disabling compositor does not fix the issue. I'm running with the built in driver, xf86-video-intel is not installed. It only happens in Firefox, Chromium displays everything correctly. In UI elements or address bar everything is ok, problem appears only inside of web content :-(

Here's some specs of my machine, maybe it helps:
Host: Latitude 5400
Kernel: 5.15.11-arch2-1
Shell: fish 3.3.1
CPU: Intel i5-8365U (8) @ 4.100GHz
GPU: Intel WhiskeyLake-U GT2
Memory: 1244MiB / 15815MiB

Also, toggling acceleration on or off in Firefox settings doesn't affect this.

I tried installing intel driver and messing around with UXA, DRI settings and so on. No dice.

Last edited by samuelm (2021-12-30 09:06:42)

seth · 2021-12-30 09:26:57

This is too specific to be a graphical glitch - my money would have been on some extension or user style messing around.
Can you select the blind "E"? Does it show up when selected?

This happens on this board as well, right?
Rightclick the empty spot for the "E" and inspect it with the … well, the web inspector - especially the computed style. But also what elelemt you actually picked (and whether it's a paragraph with the inspected text)

samuelm · 2021-12-30 09:51:50

I only use uBlock, no other extensions are installed.

I can copy the "E", and paste it to address bar or another program and it shows up correctly. Curiously it doesn't render in inspector contents:
https://i.imgur.com/qUorsTq.png

I looked over the computed css, and everything seems normal to me. But I'm not really a web developer, so maybe someone else would notice something:
http://ix.io/3K1o

seth · 2021-12-30 10:09:19

"elelemt" - that bug is between my brain and my fingers…

Interestingly it seems to skew the monospace width (in the inspector screenshot w/ my finger bug)
Are these two lines (the "A"s) perfectly aligned?

AAAAAAAAAAAA
AEEEEEEEEEEA

If you copy and paste the selected "E" into a console, what's the output of

printf E | od -An -a
printf E | od -An -x

samuelm · 2021-12-30 10:24:45

The lines seem to be aligned:
https://i.imgur.com/ImPUuL9.png

this is the output from the console:

xxxxx@xxxxx ~> printf E | od -An -a
   E
xxxxx@xxxxx ~> printf E | od -An -x
 0045

seth · 2021-12-30 10:33:54

No, they should have the exat same length, but they don't.
However, you're copypasting a regular-ass ascii "E", no weird unicode

To rule out some local fontconfig bug, does it happen if you create a fresh user account and run firefox for that user?

samuelm · 2021-12-30 11:50:54

On a new user everything worked fine, so that led me to renaming firefox profile dir. Instant win - "E"s show up now :-D I'll try to isolate what caused the problem by tinkering with the contents of profile directory. If I find it, I'll post it here. Thank you for your patience!

Edit: The problem is connected somehow to the font I'm using - Ubuntu or DejaVu Sans is broken, but Droid Sans or Heuristica for example works just fine.

Edit2: There was some problem with my fontconfig conf files - after moving over files from my other system rendering works correctly with any font. I wiped everything, should've done a diff before I guess.
Anyway, it was a fontconfig issue.

Last edited by samuelm (2021-12-31 08:11:04)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-12-29 12:32:00

[SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#2 2021-12-29 12:48:40

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#3 2021-12-29 13:28:15

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#4 2021-12-29 13:34:57

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#5 2021-12-29 15:41:33

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#6 2021-12-30 07:10:38

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#7 2021-12-30 09:26:57

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#8 2021-12-30 09:51:50

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#9 2021-12-30 10:09:19

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#10 2021-12-30 10:24:45

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#11 2021-12-30 10:33:54

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

#12 2021-12-30 11:50:54

Re: [SOLVED] Missing capital E in Firefox

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