Bug#867657: Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Thorsten Glaser]

Soeren D. Schulze dixit:

> I can confirm this.  You need both full hinting in debconf as well as having
> FREETYPE_PROPERTIES set.  Having only one of them does not do anything.

I’ve arrived here from #867657 via Planet Debian. There, another article
https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/subpixel-hinting.html was linked
which indicates that this has something to do with subpixel hinting.

Indeed, back when this change was forced upon us, I found out that I had
to always disable subpixel hinting, but I do not need to change the in‐
terpreter version.

I’ve got in my ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf (former ~/.fonts.conf):






true


hintfull



none




[…]

This disables subpixel hinting and reverts back to greyscale hinting.
I need this anyway (because otherwise, fonts get coloured blurs that
are noticeable on a Thinkpad X61 even when the correct mode is used),
it fixes the bad rendering issue for me too though.

Then it enables the autohinter by default, with hintfull as default
hinting mode.

After this, fonts.conf contains per-font changes (to either switch to
hintslight or disable the autohinter for individual fonts):

[…]


Gentium


true


hintslight


[…]


Inconsolatazi4varl_qu


false


[…]



Perhaps this helps someone. Full config at:
 http://www.mirbsd.org/music/free/resources/dot.fonts.conf

Please post whether, with this, you can get by withOUT setting
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES at all (or unsetting it if you had it set).

Good luck,
//mirabilos
-- 
15:39⎜«mika:#grml» mira|AO: "mit XFree86® wär’ das nicht passiert" - muhaha
15:48⎜ also warum machen die xorg Jungs eigentlich alles
kaputt? :)15:49⎜ thkoehler: weil sie als Kinder nie den
gebauten Turm selber umschmeissen durften?  -- ~/.Xmodmap wonders…

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Bob Bib]

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 23:44:42 -0300 Adriano Vilela Barbosa 
 wrote:

On Sat, 8 Jul 2017 09:41:02 +0200 Laurent Bigonville  wrote:
> Le 08/07/17 à 00:30, Soeren D. Schulze a écrit :
> >>> Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped,
> >>> correct?
> >>
> >> In my case (fontconfig 2.12.3-0.2, libfreetype6 2.8-0.2), setting
> >> FREETYPE_PROPERTIES was not enough. Only after I've also
> >> dpkg-reconfigured fontconfig to 'Full' hinting style everything got back
> >> to normal (pre 2.12 style).
> >
> > I can confirm this.  You need both full hinting in debconf as well as
> > having FREETYPE_PROPERTIES set.  Having only one of them does not do
> > anything.
> OK thanks for the precisions. I'll upload my fontconfig update and clone
> this bug
>
>

Hi,

I also follow testing and started seeing this after a dist-upgrade
yesterday (I hadn't done any upgrades since the release of stretch).
Some applications weren't affected by the upgrade (e.g., Gimp). Others
(e.g., Firefox) were affected by could be fixed by upgrading
fontconfig to 2.12.3-0.2 and setting FREETYPE_PROPERTIES. And there is
a third group of applications (all KDE applications, Emacs) that could
only be fixed by downgrading libfreetype6 to 2.6.3-3.2.

Adriano




BTW, for freetype, it's bug #867657...

--
Best wishes,
Bob

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Adriano Vilela Barbosa]

On Sat, 8 Jul 2017 09:41:02 +0200 Laurent Bigonville  wrote:
> Le 08/07/17 à 00:30, Soeren D. Schulze a écrit :
> >>> Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped,
> >>> correct?
> >>
> >> In my case (fontconfig 2.12.3-0.2, libfreetype6 2.8-0.2), setting
> >> FREETYPE_PROPERTIES was not enough. Only after I've also
> >> dpkg-reconfigured fontconfig to 'Full' hinting style everything got back
> >> to normal (pre 2.12 style).
> >
> > I can confirm this.  You need both full hinting in debconf as well as
> > having FREETYPE_PROPERTIES set.  Having only one of them does not do
> > anything.
> OK thanks for the precisions. I'll upload my fontconfig update and clone
> this bug
>
>

Hi,

I also follow testing and started seeing this after a dist-upgrade
yesterday (I hadn't done any upgrades since the release of stretch).
Some applications weren't affected by the upgrade (e.g., Gimp). Others
(e.g., Firefox) were affected by could be fixed by upgrading
fontconfig to 2.12.3-0.2 and setting FREETYPE_PROPERTIES. And there is
a third group of applications (all KDE applications, Emacs) that could
only be fixed by downgrading libfreetype6 to 2.6.3-3.2.

Adriano

Bug#866950: Bug #866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Bob Bib]

On Sun, 02 Jul 2017 19:30:25 -0500 Terry Watt  wrote:

Package: fontconfig-config
Version: 2.12.3-0.1
Followup-For: Bug #866950

...

After two frustrating days, I found the cause.  It is the inclusion of the 
following new files in fontconfig-config:
10-autohint.conf
10-hinting-slight.conf
(symlinks in /etc/fonts/conf.d to /usr/share/)

These files do not exist in 2.11.

From reading the files, I believe they were intended to provide fallbacks.  
However, they appear to function by overriding system behavior.

I use full hinting and no autohinter, so many (not all) of my fonts were 
dramatically changed by the forced activation of autohinting and slight hinting.

...

-- debconf information:
* fontconfig/hinting_type: Autohinter
* fontconfig/subpixel_rendering: Automatic
* fontconfig/enable_bitmaps: false


I've not changed my system-wide hinting settings after upgrade to 2.12.3-0.1, and strangely enough, 
it uses "native" hinting mode (no autohinting and no 
"/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-autohint.conf" symlink);
here's my "fontconfig-config" debconf information:
* fontconfig/subpixel_rendering: Automatic
* fontconfig/enable_bitmaps: false
* fontconfig/hinting_type: Native

Anyway, it doesn't matter much, because those settings can easily be changed 
via:
# dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

--
Best wishes,
Bob

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Laurent Bigonville]

Le 08/07/17 à 00:30, Soeren D. Schulze a écrit :
Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped, 
correct?


In my case (fontconfig 2.12.3-0.2, libfreetype6 2.8-0.2), setting
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES was not enough. Only after I've also
dpkg-reconfigured fontconfig to 'Full' hinting style everything got back
to normal (pre 2.12 style).


I can confirm this.  You need both full hinting in debconf as well as 
having FREETYPE_PROPERTIES set.  Having only one of them does not do 
anything.
OK thanks for the precisions. I'll upload my fontconfig update and clone 
this bug

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Soeren D. Schulze]

Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped, correct?


In my case (fontconfig 2.12.3-0.2, libfreetype6 2.8-0.2), setting
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES was not enough. Only after I've also
dpkg-reconfigured fontconfig to 'Full' hinting style everything got back
to normal (pre 2.12 style).


I can confirm this.  You need both full hinting in debconf as well as 
having FREETYPE_PROPERTIES set.  Having only one of them does not do 
anything.

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Tomasz Nitecki]

On 07/07/17 23:06, Laurent Bigonville wrote:
> Le 07/07/17 à 22:52, Soeren D. Schulze a écrit :
>> Am 07.07.2017 um 08:51 schrieb Laurent Bigonville:
>>> Le 07/07/17 à 08:28, Laurent Bigonville a écrit :
 With the updated freefont and fontconfig could you please try to
 regenerate the fontconfig cache files with running (as root):
 "fc-cache -s -f -v" (before doing so maybe try to delete
 ~/.cache/fontconfig in your home) and test again?
>>>
>>> Could you also try to export
>>> FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35" when testing an
>>> application?
>>>
>>> Freetype has also changed his behavior in the last release the version
>>> 35 of the interpreter is the old one
>>
>> The first two suggestions (fc-cache and deleting ~/.cache/fontconfig)
>> do not help, but the last one does.

It worked exactly the same way for me.


> Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped, correct?

In my case (fontconfig 2.12.3-0.2, libfreetype6 2.8-0.2), setting
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES was not enough. Only after I've also
dpkg-reconfigured fontconfig to 'Full' hinting style everything got back
to normal (pre 2.12 style).


Regards,
T.




signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Soeren D. Schulze]

Am 07.07.2017 um 23:06 schrieb Laurent Bigonville:

Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped, correct?

If it's the case I'll already upload that, for freetype I should maybe
add an entry in the NEWS file as well.


No -- with the new libfreetype6, the only thing that helps is 
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35".  Neither the 
debconf setting nor local.conf has any effect.

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Laurent Bigonville]

Le 07/07/17 à 22:52, Soeren D. Schulze a écrit :

Am 07.07.2017 um 08:51 schrieb Laurent Bigonville:

Le 07/07/17 à 08:28, Laurent Bigonville a écrit :

I'm a bit puzzled here.

With the updated freefont and fontconfig could you please try to
regenerate the fontconfig cache files with running (as root):
"fc-cache -s -f -v" (before doing so maybe try to delete
~/.cache/fontconfig in your home) and test again?


Could you also try to export
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35" when testing an
application?

Freetype has also changed his behavior in the last release the version
35 of the interpreter is the old one


The first two suggestions (fc-cache and deleting ~/.cache/fontconfig) 
do not help, but the last one does.


Changing the value in debconf question in fontconfig also helped, correct?

If it's the case I'll already upload that, for freetype I should maybe 
add an entry in the NEWS file as well.

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Soeren D. Schulze]

Am 07.07.2017 um 08:51 schrieb Laurent Bigonville:

Le 07/07/17 à 08:28, Laurent Bigonville a écrit :

I'm a bit puzzled here.

With the updated freefont and fontconfig could you please try to
regenerate the fontconfig cache files with running (as root):
"fc-cache -s -f -v" (before doing so maybe try to delete
~/.cache/fontconfig in your home) and test again?


Could you also try to export
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35" when testing an
application?

Freetype has also changed his behavior in the last release the version
35 of the interpreter is the old one


The first two suggestions (fc-cache and deleting ~/.cache/fontconfig) do 
not help, but the last one does.



Sören

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Laurent Bigonville]

Le 07/07/17 à 08:28, Laurent Bigonville a écrit :

Le 07/07/17 à 00:23, Tomasz Nitecki a écrit :

Hey,

On 06/07/17 16:42, Laurent Bigonville wrote:

I've uploaded a new version of fontconfig on:
https://people.debian.org/~bigon/fontconfig/

Could you please install this version and then run "dpkg-reconfigure
fontconfig-config" and on the question about the hinting style select
"Full"? This is the hinting style used before 2.12 (now fontconfig uses
"Slight").

Of course to test you need to remove the manual fix you applied on your
system.

Before I installed your new fontconfig version (2.12.3-0.2), I have
already upgraded libfreetype6 to 2.8-0.2. I have experienced the same
problem that Soeren did - neither your new version nor my local.conf
worked. After I downgraded libfreetype6 to 2.6.3-3.2, both your version
and my local.conf worked fine (tested separately).


I'm a bit puzzled here.

With the updated freefont and fontconfig could you please try to 
regenerate the fontconfig cache files with running (as root): 
"fc-cache -s -f -v" (before doing so maybe try to delete 
~/.cache/fontconfig in your home) and test again?


Could you also try to export 
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35" when testing an 
application?


Freetype has also changed his behavior in the last release the version 
35 of the interpreter is the old one

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Laurent Bigonville]

Le 07/07/17 à 00:23, Tomasz Nitecki a écrit :

Hey,

On 06/07/17 16:42, Laurent Bigonville wrote:

I've uploaded a new version of fontconfig on:
https://people.debian.org/~bigon/fontconfig/

Could you please install this version and then run "dpkg-reconfigure
fontconfig-config" and on the question about the hinting style select
"Full"? This is the hinting style used before 2.12 (now fontconfig uses
"Slight").

Of course to test you need to remove the manual fix you applied on your
system.

Before I installed your new fontconfig version (2.12.3-0.2), I have
already upgraded libfreetype6 to 2.8-0.2. I have experienced the same
problem that Soeren did - neither your new version nor my local.conf
worked. After I downgraded libfreetype6 to 2.6.3-3.2, both your version
and my local.conf worked fine (tested separately).


I'm a bit puzzled here.

With the updated freefont and fontconfig could you please try to 
regenerate the fontconfig cache files with running (as root): "fc-cache 
-s -f -v" (before doing so maybe try to delete ~/.cache/fontconfig in 
your home) and test again?





Thanks for looking into this :)
T.

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Tomasz Nitecki]

Hey,

On 06/07/17 16:42, Laurent Bigonville wrote:
> I've uploaded a new version of fontconfig on:
> https://people.debian.org/~bigon/fontconfig/
> 
> Could you please install this version and then run "dpkg-reconfigure
> fontconfig-config" and on the question about the hinting style select
> "Full"? This is the hinting style used before 2.12 (now fontconfig uses
> "Slight").
> 
> Of course to test you need to remove the manual fix you applied on your
> system.

Before I installed your new fontconfig version (2.12.3-0.2), I have
already upgraded libfreetype6 to 2.8-0.2. I have experienced the same
problem that Soeren did - neither your new version nor my local.conf
worked. After I downgraded libfreetype6 to 2.6.3-3.2, both your version
and my local.conf worked fine (tested separately).


Thanks for looking into this :)
T.





signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Soeren D. Schulze]

Correction:  After upgrading libfreetype6 from 2.6.3-3.2 to 2.8-0.2, it 
stops working again, and local.conf is not respected any more, either. 
Downgrading it again fixes it.

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Soeren D. Schulze]

I've uploaded a new version of fontconfig on:
https://people.debian.org/~bigon/fontconfig/

>

Could you please install this version and then run "dpkg-reconfigure
fontconfig-config" and on the question about the hinting style select
"Full"? This is the hinting style used before 2.12 (now fontconfig uses
"Slight").


Works here.

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Laurent Bigonville]

On Sun, 02 Jul 2017 18:31:09 -0400 "Andrew J. Buehler" 
 wrote:


> Dear Maintainer,

Hello,

>
> When I upgraded fontconfig, fontconfig-config, libfontconfig1 (both
> amd64 and i386), and libfontconfig1-dev from version 2.11.0-6.7+b1 to
> version 2.12.3-0.1, as part of a routine dist-upgrade against testing, I
> was unpleasantly surprised to see the fonts in some of my open
> applications (most notably Firefox and Thunderbird) change appearance
> significantly. Downgrading back to 2.11.0-6.7+b1 restored the previous
> font appearance. This bug report was written after that downgrade; I
> have modified the version tag by hand to reflect the affected version.
>
> I do not know what the nature of the underlying change that causes this
> behavior change is. I have searched through various fontconfig-related
> configuration files without identifying any obviously relevant entries,
> examined a diff of the source of the two versions, and tried a few
> "disable font smoothing" suggestions from the Web, without seeing any
> change in the results.

I've uploaded a new version of fontconfig on: 
https://people.debian.org/~bigon/fontconfig/


Could you please install this version and then run "dpkg-reconfigure 
fontconfig-config" and on the question about the hinting style select 
"Full"? This is the hinting style used before 2.12 (now fontconfig uses 
"Slight").


Of course to test you need to remove the manual fix you applied on your 
system.


Thanks!

Laurent Bigonville

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Terry Watt]

Package: fontconfig-config
Version: 2.12.3-0.1
Followup-For: Bug #866950

Dear Maintainer,

I was about to file this myself when I found that Andrew just opened this bug.

After two frustrating days, I found the cause.  It is the inclusion of the 
following new files in fontconfig-config:
10-autohint.conf
10-hinting-slight.conf
(symlinks in /etc/fonts/conf.d to /usr/share/)

These files do not exist in 2.11.

>From reading the files, I believe they were intended to provide fallbacks.  
>However, they appear to function by overriding system behavior.

I use full hinting and no autohinter, so many (not all) of my fonts were 
dramatically changed by the forced activation of autohinting and slight hinting.

My solution was to create a ~/.fonts.conf with the following:



  

 hintfull


 false

  


This is irritating because I already had this set in XFCE, but only some 
software was respecting those settings.  Others were using the fontconfig 
values.


-- System Information: Debian Release: buster/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.11.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), 
LANGUAGE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages fontconfig-config depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.61
ii  fonts-dejavu-core  2.37-1
ii  fonts-liberation   1:1.07.4-2
ii  ttf-bitstream-vera 1.10-8
ii  ucf3.0036

fontconfig-config recommends no packages.

fontconfig-config suggests no packages.

-- debconf information:
* fontconfig/hinting_type: Autohinter
* fontconfig/subpixel_rendering: Automatic
* fontconfig/enable_bitmaps: false

Bug#866950: fontconfig: upgrade radically changes font-rendering style with no warning or hint of how to revert

[Andrew J. Buehler]

Package: fontconfig
Version: 2.12.3-0.1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

When I upgraded fontconfig, fontconfig-config, libfontconfig1 (both
amd64 and i386), and libfontconfig1-dev from version 2.11.0-6.7+b1 to
version 2.12.3-0.1, as part of a routine dist-upgrade against testing, I
was unpleasantly surprised to see the fonts in some of my open
applications (most notably Firefox and Thunderbird) change appearance
significantly. Downgrading back to 2.11.0-6.7+b1 restored the previous
font appearance. This bug report was written after that downgrade; I
have modified the version tag by hand to reflect the affected version.

I do not know what the nature of the underlying change that causes this
behavior change is. I have searched through various fontconfig-related
configuration files without identifying any obviously relevant entries,
examined a diff of the source of the two versions, and tried a few
"disable font smoothing" suggestions from the Web, without seeing any
change in the results.


With version 2.11.0-6.7+b1, a particular page of one particular Website
looks like this:

http://www.fraglimit.net/~wanderer/debian/bug-examples/fonts-with-fontconfig-2.11.0-6.7+b1_example.png

This is the "good" result; the font appearance shown on the page in this
image is the one I want to retain. (However, the fonts on the browser UI
elements are in the undesired form, having not been reloaded from before
the downgrade.)


With version 2.12.3-0.1, the same page in the same browser (with only a
page reload in between) looks like this:

http://www.fraglimit.net/~wanderer/debian/bug-examples/fonts-with-fontconfig-2.12.3-0.1_example.png

This is the "bad" result, the one I want to avoid.


The exact procedure which resulted in these images is:

* Upgrade to 2.12.3-0.1.
* Restart the browser, and return to the page.
* Downgrade to 2.11.0-6.7+b1.
* Take the 2.12.3-0.1 screenshot.
* Reload the page.
* Take the 2.11.0-6.7+b1 screenshot.

These images will remain up at these locations for some time, but are
not guaranteed to remain available there indefinitely.

I apologize for the high screenshot resolution; that is a reflection of
the resolution at which I run.


It is possible that there may be a way to modify the configuration of my
local system to avoid this behavior change. If so, please provide an
indication of where to find this configuration setting, in a place which
should be available to someone upgrading the package.

If there is no way to do that, and the behavior change is intentional
(either on the part of the packagers or the part of upstream), please
announce at upgrade time the fact that the change will occur - either
via the changelog, or via NEWS.

If the behavior change is not intentional, please modify the package so
that it does not occur with future versions.

If there is anything I can do to help track this down, please do not
hesitate to let me know.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/12 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8),
LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages fontconfig depends on:
ii  dpkg   1.18.24
ii  fontconfig-config  2.11.0-6.7
ii  libc6  2.24-12
ii  libfontconfig1 2.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libfreetype6   2.6.3-3.2

fontconfig recommends no packages.

fontconfig suggests no packages.

-- debconf-show failed