Ubuntu
firefox package

Firefox 3.0 is rendering text incorrectly

Asked by ctenn2ls

This is the third site that I have posted this issue at, and not a single person has helped me thus far. I am running Hardy Heron on an Intel pc. I have been using Firefox-3.0 since its Beta testing stages. At one point I installed 2.0.0.14 as a stable version and all hell broke loose on every version of Firefox-3.0 I've had since then. All text, whether it's on a webpage or in option menus, context menus, etc... has enormous spaces between every word. It makes using the browser exceedingly unintelligible. I've been forced to use Seamonkey as a browser just to deal with this issue.

Screenshot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27871142@N08/2592271512/sizes/o/

Now, I have tried EVERYTHING to fix this issue, including but not limited to completely uninstalling all components of firefox - all version, all extensions, renaming the home directory file, making new user profiles, searching and deleting every file and directory on my / directory with "mozilla" and "firefox" in it, and doing fresh installs of the final release of 3.0 ... to no avail. I am about at wit's end and am considering trashing 3.0 for good.

I've gotten a few errors in the error console that are font related and listed in the known bugs. They are.

Failed to load XPCOM component: /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9/components/pyabout.py
Failed to load XPCOM component: /usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9/components/libpyloader.so

and a bunch of these type ones:

Warning: Error in parsing value for property 'font'. Declaration dropped.
Source File: http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/includes/yui/2.5.1/reset-fonts-grids/reset-fonts-grids.css
Line: 7

I would very much appreciate the help, and thank you.

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Revision history for this message
Christophe Painchaud (dash-ionblast) said : 		#1

Are you using KDE or GNOME?

Did you try to delete your FF preferences? (save your bookmarks first, then delete folder .mozilla in your home)

Revision history for this message
ctenn2ls (ctenn2ls) said : 		#2

I'm using whatever the latest update of Gnome is, 2.02 I guess. I did delete all the preferences, deleted the .mozilla folder, everything. Even after a complete removal of all things mozilla, it still occurs on a fresh install with no addons. I keep getting stuff in the error console about xulrunner and I had issues with firefox 2 not being able to recognize certain addons that were firefox 3.0 only, but that eventually got straightened out by deleting all the plugin records. However, that is my best guess at what this might be. I haven't seen anyone else on any forum with this problem, and it doesn't happen to Firefox-3.0 on my Vista machine at all. It's just Ubuntu 8.04 with Gnome. I even was wondering if it was an issue with downloading packages through Synaptic, and I downloaded the tar.bz file and installed direct from the site, but no improvement. Have you heard or seen anything like this before?

Oh, I also was wondering if it was an issue with the English (us) language pack. Just an afterthought really. Thanks for responding and trying to help with this.

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#3

Hi,
ok, to sum, you are using Seamonkey without this specific problem on Ubuntu+Gnome and the same theme.
You don't use an addon theme for firefox, since firefox is embedded in the Ubunut theme? How about a change of the Ubuntu theme? And how about changing the pixel letter resolution?
Just asking, but don't know if it has an impact.

What I would do is removing with Synaptic FF3 incl. configuration files and every xulrunner package. Cleaning up the cache, loading the packages new and reinstall FF3 and xulrunner.
#sudo apt-get autoclean, sudo apt-get autoremove, sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get upgrade
Do you have third parties in the sources.list, I would comment them out for this procedure.

I've looked in this directory and I don't have this file at all
/usr/lib/xulrunner-1.9/components/*pyabout.py*
I've never had any problems with FF3; did you change any system files and documented the changes you've made or at least remember it?

Revision history for this message
ctenn2ls (ctenn2ls) said : 		#4

Ok, I'm have no clue how to change the pixel letter resolution, but I would be willing to try that with some guidance. And yes, I am running Seamonkey 2.0 with no issue, and I ran Firefox 2.0.0.14 with no issue as well in the past.

I can take out the mozilla one from my source.ist as well as wine.

I didn't change any system files whatsoever. That is why this is so confusing and frustrating, it seems that even though I'm using unmodified standard firefox-3.0, that I'm getting this issue. I'll retry the fresh reinstall after the deletion of xulrunner and ff3 again without source.list entries, but I'd really like directions for that pixel letter resolution.

Thanks for the response once again.

Revision history for this message
Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#5

Hi,
under system -> preferences -> appearance -> font types -> advanced you can try detailed changes and watch if they have an impact right away.
But I'm not so certain since Seamonkey doesn't make any problems, therefore assuming that it has to do with FF3.
Good luck.

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