Note: This is a public test instance of Red Hat Bugzilla. The data contained within is a snapshot of the live data so any changes you make will not be reflected in the production Bugzilla. Email is disabled so feel free to test any aspect of the site that you want. File any problems you find or give feedback at bugzilla.redhat.com.
Bug 1889152 - Thunderbird 78 regression from 68, rendering issue in ui: lines overlap and/or text font rendered too far down due to missing google-noto-sans-fonts
Summary: Thunderbird 78 regression from 68, rendering issue in ui: lines overlap and/o...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED EOL
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: thunderbird
Version: 32
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Martin Stransky
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2020-10-18 14:01 UTC by Matthias Andree
Modified: 2021-05-25 16:54 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2021-05-25 16:54:17 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)
screenshot showing the issue on a public mailing list, so no privacy issues (75.12 KB, image/png)
2020-10-18 14:01 UTC, Matthias Andree 		no flags Details
View All

Description Matthias Andree 2020-10-18 14:01:31 UTC 
Created attachment 1722490 [details]
screenshot showing the issue on a public mailing list, so no privacy issues

Description of problem:
I have upgraded Fedora from 31 to 32 x86_64, and Thunderbird was upgraded from 68 to 78 as part of the upgrade. The UI rendering is hosed, lines in folder and message lists overlap, and background highlights are offset from the rendered text fonts by a few pixels, marking text hard to read.  See screenshot.  (It's a bit hard to catch in screenshots because the re-rendering determines how lines overlap.)

Also the icon choice in Thunderbird appears to be light and there is less distinction of folder icons compared to Thunderbird 68 on Fedora 31.

This is with Xorg (not wayland) and proprietary nvidia drivers.

GNOME display scaling is at 1.00, no HiDPI (largest is Full HD 1920x1080 on 23 in).


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
thunderbird-78.3.1-1.fc32.x86_64
(before upgrade, for comparison: thunderbird-68.11.0-1.fc31.x86_64)

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install thunderbird-78.3.1-1.fc32.x86_64 on Fedora 32 and launch it.

Actual results:
Lines overlap, font is rendered "too far down".

Expected results:
Proper rendering position of fonts relative to lines in the list.

Additional info:
Comment 1 Martin Stransky 2020-10-26 21:18:19 UTC 
Can you reproduce that with Mozilla binaries [1]? Also I think it may work if you create a new TB profile [2], but it's question if you can import your existing setup there.
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Firefox_problems?rd=Bug_info_Firefox#Testing_Mozilla_binaries
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_debug_Firefox_problems?rd=Bug_info_Firefox#Create_a_new_profile
Comment 2 Matthias Andree 2020-10-26 21:30:26 UTC 
Hi Martin,

I've downloaded 78.4.0 German Linux 64-bit, and it shows the same issue, with my existing profile as well as with a blank new profile. It also happens through SSH.

One data point, it does NOT happen with a FreeBSD server running FreeBSD 12.1 and the latest ports, if it helps for upstream, I can try to dig up support library versions. GNOME/GTK+ may be older on FreeBSD, haven't checked yet.
Comment 3 Martin Stransky 2020-10-28 09:39:56 UTC 
Can you try to use a different Gtk3 theme? Use tweak tools to change the actual one.
Comment 4 Matthias Andree 2020-10-28 19:40:08 UTC 
Martin, the Fedora 32 package does not permit me to change the Thunderbird theme. With the upstream Thunderbird 78.4.0, I _can_ change the theme, but to no avail. Switching fonts does not appear to help. 
I am not sure what tool you suggest for me to change Gtk3-theme, which package should I install, and which command should I run? Screenshot or URL?
Comment 5 Martin Stransky 2021-01-01 21:48:38 UTC 
I do see that on my installation too. It's caused by font used by Thunderbird/Firefox for urlbar / lists and I have that issue after clear Fedora 33 installation.

You should confirm that in Firefox too, for instance if you open "History -> Show all history" from menu in Firefox, you should see a similar issue when text is rendered slightly off center and icons are misplaced.

I still don't know which font causes that and why Firefox / Thunderbird picks that but I'm working on that.
Comment 6 Martin Stransky 2021-01-01 21:50:11 UTC 
btw. this also affects Firefox URL bar and search suggestions results shown there, the icons by text are also misplaced.
Comment 7 Martin Stransky 2021-01-01 22:19:18 UTC 
So problem solved. I installed google-noto-sans-fonts package which was missing on my clean installation and Firefox/Thunderbird is fixed again. Without the google-noto-sans-fonts installed Droid Sans is used as UI font. I'm still not sure if that's a bug in Firefox/Thunderbird or somewhere else.

As a workaround we can require the google-noto-sans-fonts package in Firefox/Thunderbird.
Comment 8 Matthias Andree 2021-01-02 12:05:40 UTC 
This does not hold on Fedora 32, I have google-noto-sans-fonts-20181223-7.fc32.noarch installed.
Comment 9 Matthias Andree 2021-01-02 12:14:18 UTC 
To detail this, my issue persists even when switching Western and Unicode fonts to "Noto Sans" and restarting Thunderbird. thunderbird-78.6.0-1.fc32.x86_64. I've also blown away fontconfig caches as root and as user (fc-cache -rv) just to be sure.
Comment 10 Matthias Andree 2021-01-02 12:29:08 UTC 
Using gnome-tweaks to switch the UI from Droid Sans to Noto Sans appears to have helped. (I had previously tried reloading the Adwaita default GNOME theme without success.)
Comment 11 Matthias Andree 2021-01-02 12:38:05 UTC 
I created a new user which seemed to use Cantarell fonts - these seem fine for Thunderbird, too - so something about Droid fonts in the 'zillas appears to be hosed in my configuration, and not so much about missing Noto...
Comment 12 Fedora Program Management 2021-04-29 16:41:33 UTC 
This message is a reminder that Fedora 32 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 32 on 2021-05-25.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
Fedora 'version' of '32'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 32 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.
Comment 13 Ben Cotton 2021-05-25 16:54:17 UTC 
Fedora 32 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2021-05-25. Fedora 32 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.
Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.