Default Chromium fonts (Liberation) are missing after snapd has been updated
How to recover them ?
chromium 89.0.4350.4 latest/edge
snap version
snap 2.48+git661.g2997c48
snapd 2.48+git661.g2997c48
series 16
ubuntu 20.10
kernel 5.8.0-33-generic
cc @osomon
This is probably a variant of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/snapd/+bug/1858636 which should now be totally avoided by the chromium snap since it now uses the gnome extension and thus has a snap-private font cache which snapd doesnât touch or modify.
Does it work if you run:
sudo snap run --shell chromium -c 'FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts.conf" "${SNAP_DESKTOP_RUNTIME}/usr/bin/fc-cache" --force --system-only --verbose'
and then restart chromium? also what is the output of that command regardless of whether it works afterwards?
I will have to wait for the next snapd updateâŚ
I recovered my fonts by deleting the â~/snap/chromium/commonâ directory which forced chromium to go and retrieve a â.config/chromiumâ folder from an old âaptâ installation, taking care to update the âDefaultâ folder before
snapd update > 2.48+git667.g9adfb75
Fonts are missing againâŚ
Running
sudo snap run --shell -c 'FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts.conf" "${SNAP_DESKTOP_RUNTIME}/usr/bin/fc-cache" --force --system-only --verbose'
doesnât change anything
error message:
error : unknown flag 'c'
error message without flag âcâ:
error : cannot find current revision for snap FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts: readlink /snap/FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts/current: no such file or directory
snapd last update
(2.48+git703.g8f57b94)
2.48+git705.g4ee1ee8
same, fonts are missing again
Default fonts are missing in chromium after a snapd update
Nothing happens if I quit and reopen chromium the usual way, the fonts are still missing
But if I run a âsudo killall chromeâ command instead of simply quitting chromium then the fonts are no longer missing.
(same approach here: How to run chromium in another language?)
I donât know if this is the logical approach but in any case it saves me tedious manipulations.
Had to run a âsudo killall chromeâ command because of this:
System Settings option âContinue to run background apps when Google Chrome is closed.â must be disabled for Chromium to quit properly (no background processes).
But the fonts are still missing after a snapd update and I still have to quit Chromium to get them back
Sorry I had a typo here, it should be:
sudo snap run --shell chromium -c 'FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts.conf" "${SNAP_DESKTOP_RUNTIME}/usr/bin/fc-cache" --force --system-only --verbose'
Fonts are ok right now
Have to wait for the next snapd update
You can artificially trigger snapd snap updates by switching channels with
snap refresh snapd --candidate
etc.
snapd update > missing default fonts:
sudo snap run --shell chromium -c 'FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts.conf" "${SNAP_DESKTOP_RUNTIME}/usr/bin/fc-cache" --force --system-only --verbose'
mkdir: cannot create directory '/run/user/0': Permission denied
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 5: unknown element "its:rules"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 6: unknown element "its:translateRule"
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'translate'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'selector'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 7: invalid attribute 'xmlns:its'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 7: invalid attribute 'version'
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/fonts.conf", line 9: unknown element "description"
/usr/share/fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 9 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 4 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings/large: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc: caching, new cache contents: 89 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/util: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/cMap: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/cmap: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/eot: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/eot/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 6 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/inter: caching, new cache contents: 18 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/linux-libertine: caching, new cache contents: 13 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/malayalam: caching, new cache contents: 7 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto: caching, new cache contents: 28 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/urw-base35: caching, new cache contents: 35 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/svg: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/svg/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 60 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Gargi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Gubbi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Nakula: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Navilu: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Sahadeva: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Sarai: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/abyssinica: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/crosextra: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu: caching, new cache contents: 22 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-beng-extra: caching, new cache contents: 6 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-deva-extra: caching, new cache contents: 3 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-gujr-extra: caching, new cache contents: 5 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-guru-extra: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-kalapi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-orya-extra: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-telu-extra: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-yrsa-rasa: caching, new cache contents: 10 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont: caching, new cache contents: 12 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/gentium: caching, new cache contents: 4 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/gentium-basic: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/glyphicons: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/kacst: caching, new cache contents: 15 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/kacst-one: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lao: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lato: caching, new cache contents: 18 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation: caching, new cache contents: 16 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation2: caching, new cache contents: 12 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/libreoffice: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-assamese: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-bengali: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-devanagari: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-gujarati: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-kannada: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-malayalam: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-oriya: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-punjabi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-tamil: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-tamil-classical: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lohit-telugu: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lyx: caching, new cache contents: 11 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/malayalam: caching, new cache contents: 10 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/noto: caching, new cache contents: 1640 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/open-sans: caching, new cache contents: 13 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/openoffice: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/padauk: caching, new cache contents: 4 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/pagul: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 2 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/hinted: caching, new cache contents: 20 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/unhinted: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/unhinted/RobotoTTF: caching, new cache contents: 12 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/samyak: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/samyak-fonts: caching, new cache contents: 3 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/sinhala: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/teluguvijayam: caching, new cache contents: 3 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/tibetan-machine: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/tlwg: caching, new cache contents: 58 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bitstream-vera: caching, new cache contents: 10 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-khmeros-core: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ubuntu: caching, new cache contents: 14 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/type1: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 2 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/type1/gsfonts: caching, new cache contents: 35 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/type1/urw-base35: caching, new cache contents: 35 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/woff: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/woff/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/local/share/fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/var/snap/chromium/common/fontconfig: cleaning cache directory
/var/cache/fontconfig: not cleaning unwritable cache directory
/snap/chromium/1434/gnome-platform/usr/bin/fc-cache: succeededSo this is interesting, this directory inside the snap is actually a bind mount from the host system, so what I would be curious to see is if you make this directory temporarily empty and then re-run things if it works. We have talked about getting rid of or otherwise disabling this mounting code in snapd because most snaps now shouldnât need it since they will be using their own snap-private font caches, so perhaps we need to do that.
Can you try the following and see what happens:
snap disable chromium
sudo mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/cache/fontconfig
snap enable chromium
snap run --shell chromium -c 'ls -lah /var/cache/fontconfig' # this should be an empty dir
snap run chromium # check if fonts work
# trigger a snapd refresh
snap refresh snapd --edge # or some other channel than what you are currently following
snap run chromium # check if fonts work now
# if fonts don't work, then try this:
sudo snap run --shell chromium -c 'FONTCONFIG_FILE="${SNAP_COMMON}/fontconfig/fonts.conf" "${SNAP_DESKTOP_RUNTIME}/usr/bin/fc-cache" --force --system-only --verbose'
snap run chromium # check fonts again
to undo the empty /var/cache/fontconfig above, do this:
sudo umount /var/cache/fontconfig
It worked after running all commands
No more missing fonts after snapd update 
No need to run that so ?
to undo the empty /var/cache/fontconfig above, do this:
sudo umount /var/cache/fontconfig
missing fonts again after last snapd update⌠
Thanks for testing this out, we understand the problem and unfortunately you will keep hitting the issue where the fonts disappear until we have merged the fix into edge, but it is currently under active review in snapd, then once it is in snapd, the chromium snap will need to be updated to use it.
Thanks for the great work in hunting down and squashing this bug. Please do update this thread once the fix is released. 
We did land the first bit of the fix here to snapd: https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/pull/9805. That however needs to be used by the affected snaps to fix them, since we donât want to break snaps that might be relying on the existing behavior for whatever reason, so the next PR to look for is one to snapcraft which updates the extension, then snaps that are affected by this will need to be rebuilt with the new version of snapcraft, then this bug should hopefully be fixed for good.
@jamesh were you going to submit the PR to snapcraft updating the extension?
I may be wrong, but as far as I know, you can just download your favorite font.
I usually always do this when I donât like the font on some forum or I canât read it. This is a common practice. Even if my favorite font is no longer there, just knowing the name can fix it.
By the way, I am also constantly looking for new and interesting fonts for my work. One of my favorites is the Back to the Future 2002 font, which is perfect for most projects.
Well for what itâs worth the support was merged into the chromium snap at some point in the past 9 months via snapcraft extensions so this issue should be gone now for the chromium snap, it would be great if @donjoe could clarify if this is still happening or not, my hope is that it isnât