Bug 99863 - Certain characters won't display correctly and turn into error glyphs, seemingly at random.
Summary: Certain characters won't display correctly and turn into error glyphs, seemin...
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All Linux (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Font-Rendering
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2016-05-15 16:24 UTC by medviten
Modified: 2016-05-24 19:34 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
This should say コꜜーラ, but the ー becomes an error glyph instead. (1.13 KB, image/png)
2016-05-15 16:24 UTC, medviten
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description medviten 2016-05-15 16:24:02 UTC
Created attachment 125062 [details]
This should say コꜜーラ, but the ー becomes an error glyph instead.

I'm writing a text, mainly in English and Japanese, but it includes Chinese and IPA as well. Normally, Writer handles it without problems, but some special characters (not Chinese characters) have started displaying incorrectly, seemingly at random. It's always the same ones, too: ・ (a common mark in Japanese), ー (also common in Japanese), and ꜜ (IPA downstep).

The two first marks, ・ and ー, stop displaying at the same time, leaving the error glyph that looks kind of like 口. Whenever they do display correctly, ꜜ turns into the error glyph instead. I noticed that the problem started after I first used the ꜜ , so I suspect it's related to that somehow. It's not only adjacent characters, but all instances of whichever characters are affected at a given time.

I've tried changing the font to Droid Sans Japanese, since it seems to support every character I need, but the problem returned within two minutes. Is there anything I can do to fix it?
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2016-05-16 15:32:12 UTC
Seems to be a font fallback issue.

Please provide your LibreOffice build details and details of your Linux distro and the Desktop environment you use.
Comment 2 medviten 2016-05-16 16:41:39 UTC
I'm in LibreOffice Version: 4.2.8.2
Build ID: 420m0(Build:2)

My OS is Linux Mint with MATE desktop environment: Linux version 3.13.0-24-generic (buildd@komainu) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) )
Comment 3 V Stuart Foote 2016-05-16 17:00:50 UTC
OK, thanks for the info. Reality is that 4.2.8.2 build is well past end of life. The chances of having anything done with it relies on paying for commercial support.

Suggest you install a current build from the PPA 5.1.3.2, or even a build of master in parallel, and see if the font fallback issue remains.
Comment 4 Buovjaga 2016-05-17 12:18:50 UTC
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel/Linux

Set to NEEDINFO.
Change back to UNCONFIRMED, if the problem persists. Change to RESOLVED WORKSFORME, if the problem went away.
Comment 5 medviten 2016-05-24 19:33:24 UTC
I've installed a newer version of LO and there is no problem now. :)