Bug 631502 – media-libs/freetype-2.8.1 broken fonts

• Status: UNCONFIRMED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description acab 2017-09-20 09:49:06 UTC]

Created attachment 495610 [details]
Screenshot of ugly font

Hi,
upgrading from freetype-2.8 to freetype-2.8.1 breaks the font rendering making them ugly, very condensed and with spurious pixels popping out.

See scrrenshots

[Comment 1 acab 2017-09-20 09:49:58 UTC]

Created attachment 495612 [details]
Larger font, still ugly

[Comment 2 PrSo 2017-09-20 11:07:11 UTC]

Created attachment 495614 [details]
artifacts around ugly rendered fonts

I can confirm this. After upgrade to media-libs/freetype-2.8.1 qupzilla's webengine renders ugly fonts and all sorts of display artifacts around them.

[Comment 3 Michael Hofmann 2017-09-20 11:17:05 UTC]

Problems with QtWebEngine are discussed on the project's mailing list:
http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/freetype-devel/2017-09/msg00081.html

[Comment 4 Gianluigi Tiesi 2017-09-20 12:57:22 UTC]

I suppose because FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING in 2.8.1 is undefined by default

[Comment 5 Gianluigi Tiesi 2017-09-20 13:00:24 UTC]

that enables:

	[smooth] Harmony LCD rendering.

	This is a new technology for LCD-optimized rendering. It capitalizes
	on the fact that each color channel grid is shifted by a third of a
	pixel.  Therefore it is logical to render 3 separate monochrome
	bitmaps shifting the outline by 1/3 pixel, and then combine them.
	Importantly, the resulting output does not require additional LCD
	filtering.

	* src/smooth/ftsmooth.c (ft_smooth_render_generic)
	[!FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING]: Implement new LCD-optimized
	rendering.

	* include/freetype/ftlcdfil.h, include/freetype/freetype.h,
	include/freetype/config/ftoption.h, devel/ftoption.h: Updated
	documentation.

[Comment 6 Nicole O'Connor 2017-09-27 17:09:16 UTC]

Created attachment 496736 [details]
Firefox Rendering

Also happens in Firefox (=www-client/firefox-55.0.3). Screenshot attached. Downgrading to =media-libs/freetype-2.8 makes things nice and clear again.

What I don't personally understand is why only *some* things were affected; fonts were rendered in Firefox poorly, but most other applications (GTK and Qt alike) were fine.

[Comment 7 Nathan Zachary (RETIRED) 2017-09-28 13:52:24 UTC]

Temporary workaround for Firefox/Thunderbird on my blog:
http://z-issue.com/wp/ugly-fonts-in-mozilla-firefox-and-thunderbird-under-linux-skia-and-cairo/

In my case, those were the only application hit by this bug, so the workaround is applicable.

[Comment 8 Hugo Gonçalves 2017-10-05 15:36:41 UTC]

Changing font smoothing from RGBA to Greyscale with Gnome Tweak Tool solves this problem for me.