[SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

enbQao · 2022-12-06 18:21:09

Hi there,

for some time now, password characters appear weirdly "squished together":
squished
The caret ( I ) is also displayed right "in the middle" (or "on top") of one of those dots instead of right behind a dot.

When selecting the password masking characters, somethings seems to be wrong aswell (notice how the last one is "cut in half"):
squished-selected

I have tried to find solutions, but I could not find anything related or anyone else with this issue and unfortunately I have no idea which package update could have introduced this.
It also happens on every single application that uses password masking characters.

I am using Sway as my window manager, if that is of any constellation.

Does anyone maybe have an idea why this happens and how it could be fixed?

Last edited by enbQao (2022-12-07 14:16:40)

Neven · 2022-12-06 19:33:32

Wild guess; maybe installing some font would help?

Here are the ones I have installed (actually this should be most of all installed font-related packages, but oh well):

$ pacman -Q -s 'ttf|otf|font|typeface'
local/adobe-source-code-pro-fonts 2.038ro+1.058it+1.018var-1
    Monospaced font family for user interface and coding environments
local/adobe-source-sans-fonts 3.046-1
    Sans-serif font family for user interface environments
local/adobe-source-serif-fonts 4.004-2
    Serif typeface designed to complement Source Sans
local/cantarell-fonts 1:0.303.1-1
    Humanist sans serif font
local/dina-font 2.92-10
    A monospace bitmap font, primarily aimed at programmers
local/fontconfig 2:2.14.1-2
    Library for configuring and customizing font access
local/fontforge 20220308-1
    Outline and bitmap font editor
local/freetype2 2.12.1-1
    Font rasterization library
local/gentium-plus-font 6.101-1
    Font supporting a wide range of Latin- and Cyrillic-based alphabets
local/gnu-free-fonts 20120503-8
    A free family of scalable outline fonts
local/gsfonts 20200910-2
    (URW)++ base 35 font set
local/inter-font 3.19-2
    A typeface specially designed for user interfaces
local/libertinus-font 7.040-2
    Fonts based on Linux Libertine/Biolinum, with extended math support
local/libfontenc 1.1.6-1
    X11 font encoding library
local/libxfont2 2.0.6-1
    X11 font rasterisation library
local/libxft 2.3.7-1
    FreeType-based font drawing library for X
local/noto-fonts 20220810-1
    Google Noto TTF fonts
local/noto-fonts-emoji 20220920-1
    Google Noto emoji fonts
local/noto-fonts-extra 20220810-1
    Google Noto TTF fonts - additional variants
local/otf-cascadia-code 2111.01-1
    A monospaced font by Microsoft that includes programming ligatures
local/otf-cormorant 3.609-1
    Open-source display font family
local/otf-crimson 0.800-1
    A font family for book production in the tradition of beautiful oldstyle typefaces
local/otf-crimson-pro 1.003-1
    A professionally produced redesign of Crimson by Jacques Le Bailly (8 fixed weights)
local/otf-font-awesome 6.2.1-1
    Iconic font designed for Bootstrap
local/otf-hermit 2.0-2
    A monospace font designed to be clear, pragmatic and very readable.
local/otf-latin-modern 2.004-4
    Improved version of Computer Modern fonts as used in LaTeX
local/otf-latinmodern-math 1.959-4
    Improved version of Computer Modern fonts as used in LaTeX  OpenType Math component
local/otf-overpass 3.0.5-1
    Open source web font family (Open Type Font)
local/t1lib 5.1.2-8
    Library for generating character- and string-glyphs from Adobe Type 1 fonts
local/tamsyn-font 1.11-6
    A monospaced bitmap font for the console and X11
local/terminus-font 4.49.1-2
    Monospace bitmap font (for X11 and console)
local/tex-gyre-fonts 2.501-2
    Substitute PostScript fonts in OpenType format
local/texlive-fontsextra 2022.62977-1 (texlive-most)
    TeX Live - all sorts of extra fonts
local/ttf-anonymous-pro 1.003-7
    A family of four fixed-width fonts designed especially with coding in mind
local/ttf-bitstream-vera 1.10-14
    Bitstream Vera fonts.
local/ttf-caladea 20200113-3
    A serif font family metric-compatible with Cambria font family
local/ttf-carlito 20130920-6
    Google's Carlito font
local/ttf-cascadia-code 2111.01-1
    A monospaced font by Microsoft that includes programming ligatures
local/ttf-cormorant 3.609-1
    Open-source display font family
local/ttf-crimson 0.800-1
    A font family for book production in the tradition of beautiful oldstyle typefaces
local/ttf-crimson-pro 1.003-1
    A professionally produced redesign of Crimson by Jacques Le Bailly (8 fixed weights)
local/ttf-crimson-pro-variable 1.003-1
    A professionally produced redesign of Crimson by Jacques Le Bailly (variable weight)
local/ttf-croscore 20220810-1
    Chrome OS core fonts
local/ttf-dejavu 2.37+18+g9b5d1b2f-3
    Font family based on the Bitstream Vera Fonts with a wider range of characters
local/ttf-droid 20121017-10
    General-purpose fonts released by Google as part of Android
local/ttf-eurof 1.0-2
    The original eurofurence font designed for headlines, signs, badges, inscriptions, et al.
local/ttf-font-awesome 6.2.1-1
    Iconic font designed for Bootstrap
local/ttf-hack 3.003-3
    A hand groomed and optically balanced typeface based on Bitstream Vera Mono.
local/ttf-ibm-plex 6.0.2-1
    IBM Plex Mono, Sans, and Serif
local/ttf-inconsolata 1:3.000-3
    Monospace font for pretty code listings and for the terminal
local/ttf-input 20220502-2
    Fonts for code from DJR & Font Bureau
local/ttf-ionicons 6.0.4-1
    Font from the Ionic mobile framework
local/ttf-jetbrains-mono 2.242-2
    Typeface for developers, by JetBrains
local/ttf-joypixels 7.0.0-1
    Emoji as a Service (formerly EmojiOne)
local/ttf-junicode 1.003-2
    Junius-Unicode: Font for Medievalists
local/ttf-lato 2.015-4
    A sanserif typeface family bearing the Polish name of "Summer"
local/ttf-liberation 2.1.5-1
    Font family which aims at metric compatibility with Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New
local/ttf-linux-libertine-g 20120116-7
    Graphite port of Linux Libertine and Linux Biolinum fonts
local/ttf-monofur 1.0-7
    A monospaced font derived from the eurofurence typeface family
local/ttf-opensans 1.101-2
    Sans-serif typeface commissioned by Google
local/ttf-overpass 3.0.5-1
    Open source web font family (True Type Font)
local/ttf-proggy-clean 1.1.5-2
    Monospaced fonts for programming
local/ttf-roboto 2.138-4
    Google's signature family of fonts
local/ttf-roboto-mono 3.000-1
    A monospaced addition to the Roboto type family.
local/ttf-ubuntu-font-family 0.83-8
    Ubuntu font family
local/woff2 1.0.2-4
    Web Open Font Format 2 reference implementation
local/xorg-fonts-alias-misc 1.0.4-1
    X.org font alias files - misc font familiy
local/xorg-fonts-encodings 1.0.6-1 (xorg-fonts xorg)
    X.org font encoding files
local/xorg-fonts-misc 1.0.3-10
    X.org misc fonts
local/xorg-mkfontscale 1.2.2-1 (xorg-apps xorg)
    Create an index of scalable font files for X
local/xorg-xfd 1.1.4-1
    Displays all the characters in a font using either the X11 core protocol or libXft2

EDIT: I just removed these packages because they included bitmap fonts: terminus-font tamsyn-font dina-font xorg-fonts-misc

To check for all installed bitmap fonts use something like this:

pacman -Ql | grep -E '\.(p[sc]f|otb)'

On my system the only remaining such package is kbd, which is presumably required for the Linux console and can't be removed because Systemd depends on it.

Last edited by Neven (2022-12-06 20:00:00)

Neven · 2022-12-06 20:17:59

Also, have you checked out the Font configuration page on the Wiki? In particular, check that you don't have any active non-default config files that should perhaps be deleted.

And try disabling bitmap fonts using the preset mentioned on the wiki. And perhaps disable embedded bitmap fonts using the config provided there:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Font_c … on#Presets

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Font_c … tmap_fonts

seth · 2022-12-06 20:57:43

Please edit your post and replace the oversized images w/ links (the board has a 250x250 px max rule)

The next important questions you'd need to answer would be
a) what browser do you use (that's really important…)
b) what's the output of

fc-match sans-serif

Finally you may want to test the behavior in eg. some openbox X11 session in case this is a HiDPI output and a sway related scaling issue.

enbQao · 2022-12-07 06:54:19

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Neven wrote:

Wild guess; maybe installing some font would help?

I have the following fonts installed:

local/adobe-source-code-pro-fonts 2.038ro+1.058it+1.018var-1
    Monospaced font family for user interface and coding environments
local/cantarell-fonts 1:0.303.1-1
    Humanist sans serif font
local/fcft 3.1.5-2
    Simple library for font loading and glyph rasterization
local/fontconfig 2:2.14.1-2
    Library for configuring and customizing font access
local/freetype2 2.12.1-1
    Font rasterization library
local/libfontenc 1.1.6-1
    X11 font encoding library
local/libxfont2 2.0.6-1
    X11 font rasterisation library
local/libxft 2.3.7-1
    FreeType-based font drawing library for X
local/noto-fonts 20220810-1
    Google Noto TTF fonts
local/noto-fonts-cjk 20220126-1
    Google Noto CJK fonts
local/noto-fonts-emoji 20220920-1
    Google Noto emoji fonts
local/noto-fonts-extra 20220810-1
    Google Noto TTF fonts - additional variants
local/t1lib 5.1.2-8
    Library for generating character- and string-glyphs from Adobe Type 1 fonts
local/texlive-fontsextra 2022.62977-1 (texlive-most)
    TeX Live - all sorts of extra fonts
local/ttf-fira-code 6.2-2
    Monospaced font with programming ligatures
local/ttf-fira-mono 2:3.206-4
    Mozilla's monospace typeface designed for Firefox OS
local/ttf-fira-sans 1:4.301-2
    Mozilla's sans-serif typeface designed for Firefox OS
local/ttf-iosevka-nerd 2.2.2-1
    Typeface family designed for coding, terminal use and technical documents (Nerd Fonts)
local/ttf-jetbrains-mono 2.242-2
    Typeface for developers, by JetBrains
local/ttf-liberation 2.1.5-1
    Font family which aims at metric compatibility with Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New
local/ttf-material-design-icons-webfont 7.0.96-1
    Material Design webfont icons from materialdesignicons.com
local/woff2 1.0.2-4
    Web Open Font Format 2 reference implementation
local/xorg-fonts-encodings 1.0.6-1 (xorg-fonts xorg)
    X.org font encoding files

Neven wrote:

To check for all installed bitmap fonts use something like this:
pacman -Ql | grep -E '\.(p[sc]f|otb)'
On my system the only remaining such package is kbd, which is presumably required for the Linux console and can't be removed because Systemd depends on it.

Same for me, only remaining package when using this command is kbd.

Neven wrote:

Also, have you checked out the Font configuration page on the Wiki?

I have, but unfortunately, I did not find anything there that I could related to my problem.

Neven wrote:

In particular, check that you don't have any active non-default config files that should perhaps be deleted.

From the wiki, if I understood it correctly, the active configs are under

/etc/fonts/conf.d/

(system wide),

/usr/share/fontconfig/conf.default/

(installed by default) and

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fontconfig/conf.d/

(user config).

I dont have any user config (also none of the deprecated ones).
In my

/usr/share/fontconfig/conf.default/

there are

10-hinting-slight.conf
10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf
10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf
10-yes-antialias.conf
11-lcdfilter-default.conf
20-unhint-small-vera.conf
30-metric-aliases.conf
40-nonlatin.conf
45-generic.conf
45-latin.conf
46-noto-mono.conf
46-noto-sans.conf
46-noto-serif.conf
48-spacing.conf
49-sansserif.conf
50-user.conf
51-local.conf
60-generic.conf
60-latin.conf
65-fonts-persian.conf
65-nonlatin.conf
66-noto-mono.conf
66-noto-sans.conf
66-noto-serif.conf
69-unifont.conf
70-noto-cjk.conf
80-delicious.conf
90-synthetic.conf

Neven wrote:

And try disabling bitmap fonts using the preset mentioned on the wiki. And perhaps disable embedded bitmap fonts using the config provided there

I will try that and report back!
EDIT: Did not solve the issue. I verified that the proper configs are loaded via FC_DEBUG=1024.

seth wrote:

Please edit your post and replace the oversized images w/ links (the board has a 250x250 px max rule)

Done!

seth wrote:

a) what browser do you use (that's really important…)

Firefox. But It also happens with Brave and Chromium and it's not limited to the browser. It happens in every single application (GTK, QT, Electron, etc.).

seth wrote:

b) what's the output of
fc-match sans-serif

The output I have is

NotoSans-Regular.ttf: "Noto Sans" "Regular"

seth wrote:

Finally you may want to test the behavior in eg. some openbox X11 session in case this is a HiDPI output and a sway related scaling issue.

It is a 24" Full-HD screen, so no HiDPI and sway is set to scale 1, so I doubt it is related to scaling.

Last edited by enbQao (2022-12-07 07:08:07)

seth · 2022-12-07 07:26:07

the active configs are under

fc-conflist

Also

fc-list | grep -i noto

Since there don't seem to be any issues w/ other glyphs, it's likely a bug in the particular font w/ the particular glyph.
You could try to make eg. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/an … ans-fonts/ your default font:
~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/99-sans.conf

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <alias>
        <family>sans-serif</family>
        <prefer><family>Source Sans Pro</family></prefer>
    </alias>
</fontconfig>

Though you may have/be able to configure that in the browser as well.

enbQao · 2022-12-07 14:16:14

seth wrote:

<?xml version="1.0"?><!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <alias>
        <family>sans-serif</family>
        <prefer><family>Source Sans Pro</family></prefer>
    </alias>
</fontconfig>

Though you may have/be able to configure that in the browser as well.

That does it! So I think it is an issue with the noto fonts. Thanks for your help!

mayeutow · 2025-05-24 14:34:34

I don't think changing the font solves the issue if you want to keep using Noto Sans like me, I had the same issue (happened randomly) and fixed it, posting for anyone who stumbles upon this thread like me.
I use KDE and sddm, this weird password squashing only appeared on KDE and sddm for me, not the browser.

Change the KDE fonts to something else other than Noto Sans, also apply it to sddm and reboot. Force reinstall the fonts:

sudo pacman -S noto-fonts noto-fonts-emoji --overwrite="*"

Update the caches:

rm -rf ~/.cache/fontconfig
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/fontconfig
sudo fc-cache -rfv

Reboot and change back to Noto Sans.

seth · 2025-05-24 14:40:57

Please don't necrobump (notably to solved threads)
SDDM will not use the font of some random users session config.
Reinstalling the fonts won't do anything unless you're actually installing them over some other fonts that are not the fonts from the repos (which also would explain why you threw an --overwrite in there. In general, don't use full globbing here)
Finally there's little point in deleting the cache if you're going to force-rebuild it anyway since that will overwrite the cache.

mayeutow · 2025-05-31 13:36:43

seth wrote:

Please don't necrobump (notably to solved threads)
SDDM will not use the font of some random users session config.
Reinstalling the fonts won't do anything unless you're actually installing them over some other fonts that are not the fonts from the repos (which also would explain why you threw an --overwrite in there. In general, don't use full globbing here)
Finally there's little point in deleting the cache if you're going to force-rebuild it anyway since that will overwrite the cache.

Even if this thread is old and marked solved, it still ranks highly in search results and the original solution doesn’t account for this kind of corruption. Thought it might help someone else hitting the same symptoms.

You're right that SDDM doesn't use user session fonts, but in my case, KDE and SDDM were both showing broken text despite the correct fonts being selected, and reinstalling noto-fonts without --overwrite didn't fix it.

Yeah I guess there's no point in deleting the cache manually before force-rebuild.

seth · 2025-05-31 14:54:33

the original solution doesn’t account for this kind of corruption

So it might be that you were facing a completely different problem?

reinstalling noto-fonts without --overwrite didn't fix it

There're only two scenarios:
1. --overwrite was idempotent ("did jack shit") and whatever happened was coincidental (maybe the cache rebuild was the active part)
2. installing noto w/o --overwrite failed because of present files that were not tracked, it you had some (bogus) noto font that wasn't the one in the repos.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-12-06 18:21:09

[SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#2 2022-12-06 19:33:32

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#3 2022-12-06 20:17:59

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#4 2022-12-06 20:57:43

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#5 2022-12-07 06:54:19

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#6 2022-12-07 07:26:07

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#7 2022-12-07 14:16:14

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#8 2025-05-24 14:34:34

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#9 2025-05-24 14:40:57

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#10 2025-05-31 13:36:43

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

#11 2025-05-31 14:54:33

Re: [SOLVED] Password masking characters are "squished together"

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