After a dist-upgrade yesterday on etch running 2.6.17-k7, nvidia (from nvidia website) and gnome, my fonts in thunderbird, evolution and firefox (at least) are fouled up. Some of the headers/menus/messages/etc. are just blank until I move my mouse over them.

Edit:

When editing this post in epiphany no text showed in the edit window until I highlighted it. Most Gnome dialog buttons show no text until passed over. Calc shows no text on buttons.

I tried Xfce with the same results.

Very odd. The system was fine until this morning.

try: rm -rf /etc/fonts ; apt-get install --reinstall --yes -o DPkg::Options::=--force-confmiss -o DPkg::Options::=--force-confnew fontconfig fontconfig-config

You can also try dpkg-reconfigure fonts

That's quite a command! I tried it but it seems to have not helped. I will attempt a reboot.

Tried 'dpkg-reconfigure fonts'. Result: Package 'fonts' is not installed... (!)

Here is a link to a screenshot of tbird exhibiting the problem:

http://drip23.drizzle.com/screen.jpg

If you have GkDebconf installed you can open it as root and reconfig your fonts that way.

Nobody knows, eh? Very odd behavior, and only on one box. I have 2 running etch. I have run Iceweasel on this one occassionally, if that matters.

Tried gkdebconf, which has a "fontconfig-config" option, but it did no good.

Edit: in Gnome I selected "Desktop/Preferences/Font" and picked "subpixel smoothing", which seems to have corrected some of the problem. Odd.

Late update. For some reason the following line fixed the problem, at least in preliminary testing.

# apt-get update && apt-get install msttcorefonts x-ttcidfont-conf

I guess during the xorg 7 upgrade something was removed that the mozilla based apps needed to properly render fonts. Not sure what exactly, but they all seem okay now.

I know this is a unique problem, but thought to post the fix anyway.

Well thx for posting the solution.

I had exactly the same grief in my 32 bit etch partion...all clear in the 64 bit one though.

Your solution worked like a charm.

Ooops, spoke too soon. All is not well. Better but not well.

Firefox & Thinderbird are defo most effected, gnome-web less so, in fact hardly at all.

broken fonts; no text in browser; missing fonts; damn-upgrade-stole-my-fonts; all google amongst many other variants to no avail. Mystified. Still if it's only really bad in firefox then no loss frankly as it's pants anyway ;-)

My problem is a sometimes thing, coming and going without apparent cause. If I go to the gnome Desktop menu/Preferences/font and just click "Close" it seems to help for a bit. I have 2 etch boxes running gnome and this only effects one. Very odd.

ahh fixed the sod.

After trying lots of apt-get install for fonts and acroreader and endless junk I killed X (no mean feat in Debian) and ran which forced a reinstall of the nvidia driver and all is now right in font-land.

Seemed to be weirdness around Type1 fonts but was very odd with soem apps being more efected than others and some only being affected in certain parts of their display (top half of upper window in icedove)

I stop X with "ctrl-alt-f1", log in as root, then run:

/etc/init.d/gdm stop

It tentatively appears your nvidia-installer -f fix works. Thanks.