Linux Ubuntu 14.04 steam font problem

[Legastenika]

Maybe someone here at steam can help me out with that.
The problem is that steam dont show me any fonts like shown in the screen below:

http://imgur.com/Mlwivxd

purging -> reinstalling dont help
deleting the complete steam folder after purging also dont help
I have a very bad feeling im missing some essential font...

ms corefonts are installed:

 sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
ttf-mscorefonts-installer is already the newest version

Any kind of log i could consult to figure out whats going on?

[Long Ago [Linux]]

The image you showed only showed a steam loading screen (round thing in upper right indicating loading). Apparently no content had loaded yet. Try launching steam from a terminal window and see if any errors show in the terminal.

Note that if you have steam opened both in a web browser and steam client at the same time there may be some things you cannot do with both connected at same time.

PS: I posted this from steam client in 64-bit 14.04.

[ReallyGrimm]

Try:

sudo apt-get install ttf-liberation

[Legastenika]

Okay check this picture out to maybe get a better overview what i mean

http://imgur.com/MZzhUCz

You might see that buttons, fonts are missing completely.

$: steam &> steam_font_issue.log
$: vi steam_font_issue.log

Running Steam on ubuntu 14.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "overlay-scrollbar"
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module"
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp (402) : Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Arial

Assert( Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Arial
 ):/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp:402

Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "overlay-scrollbar"
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "unity-gtk-module"
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steamwebhelper)/version(20150323200504)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steamwebhelper)/version(1427141104)
[0403/062143:ERROR:nss_util.cc(1018)] Failed to load NSS libraries.
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steamwebhelper)/version(20150323200504)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steamwebhelper)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steamwebhelper)/version(1427176184)
crash_20150403062143_5.dmp[11041]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/crash_20150403062143_5.dmp
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp (402) : Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named DejaVu Sans

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp (402) : Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Arial

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp (402) : Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Marlett

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp (402) : Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named DejaVu Sans

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/../vgui_surfacelib/linuxfont.cpp (402) : Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Lucida Console

Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
FillInMachineIDInfo took a total of 0 milliseconds
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (500) : Assertion Failed: GetTextureForString failed

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (563) : Assertion Failed: glIsTexture( id )
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (838) : Assertion Failed: !"Current texture not set"
crash_20150403062143_5.dmp[11041]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes

Failed to init SteamVR because it isn't installed
ExecCommandLine: ""/home/user/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam" "
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1427176184)
System startup time: 4,96 seconds
rm: cannot remove ‘/home/user/.steam/bin’: Is a directory
Running Steam on ubuntu 14.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME has been set by the user to: /home/user/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime
/home/user/.steam/root/steam.sh: line 765: STEAMSCRIPT_OUTOFDATE: unbound variable

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (563) : Assertion Failed: glIsTexture( id )
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (838) : Assertion Failed: !"Current texture not set"
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (500) : Assertion Failed: GetTextureForString failed

/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (563) : Assertion Failed: glIsTexture( id )
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (838) : Assertion Failed: !"Current texture not set"
[0403/062149:ERROR:renderer_main.cc(227)] Running without renderer sandbox
ExecCommandLine: "/home/user/.steam/root/ubuntu12_32/steam steam://open/driverhelperready"
ExecSteamURL: "steam://open/driverhelperready"
[0403/062149:ERROR:renderer_main.cc(227)] Running without renderer sandbox
/home/buildbot/buildslave_steam/steam_rel_client_ubuntu12_linux/build/src/vgui2/src/surface_opengl.cpp (500) : Assertion Failed: GetTextureForString failed
.
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[2015-04-03 06:21:43] Startup - updater built Mar 23 2015 20:05:07
[2015-04-03 06:21:43] Verifying installation...
[2015-04-03 06:21:43] Verification complete
[2015-04-03 06:21:58] Shutdown
/home/user/.steam/steam.sh: line 765: STEAMSCRIPT_OUTOFDATE: unbound variable

There are a bunch of error messages about:

Assertion Failed: Unable to find font namedArial

Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Marlett

Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named DejaVu Sans

Assertion Failed: Unable to find font named Lucida Console

I tried to force a reinstall of mscorefonts:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall ttf-mscorefonts-installer 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 18 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/27,8 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 323851 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../ttf-mscorefonts-installer_3.4+nmu1ubuntu1_all.deb ...
mscorefonts-eula license has already been accepted
Unpacking ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu1) over (3.4+nmu1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (0.154.1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.11.0-0ubuntu4.1) ...
Setting up ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu1) ...

This results in the same problem.

I read somewhere that if you once installed ttf-mscorefonts-installer via ubuntu software center it might happen that the EULA isnt accepted correctly. How can i reset the EULA? Because even a reinstall of ttf-mscorefonts-installer brings up

mscorefonts-eula license has already been accepted

[Long Ago [Linux]]

Did you fully install ubuntu-restricted-extras or just ttf-mscorefonts-installer? I know that in the past, trying to install Ubuntu Restricted Extras from Software Center has been known to put the ttf EULA agreement "behind" the Software Center instead of in front of it and if you don't notice that until it hangs and you close Software Center the fonts do not get properly installed. But I don't recall if I may have used "synaptic" to reinstall them.

This is example of fonts I ended up with:

efflandt@XPS-8100-1404:/usr/share/fonts$ ls
cmap  truetype  type1  X11

efflandt@XPS-8100-1404:/usr/share/fonts$ ls truetype
abyssinica  fonts-japanese-gothic.ttf  kacst-one   msttcorefonts  padauk        tibetan-machine       ttf-khmeros-core
dejavu      freefont                   lao         nanum          sinhala       tlwg                  ttf-punjabi-fonts
droid       kacst                      liberation  openoffice     takao-gothic  ttf-indic-fonts-core  ubuntu-font-family

efflandt@XPS-8100-1404:/usr/share/fonts$ ls truetype/msttcorefonts
Andale_Mono.ttf         comic.ttf                    Georgia.ttf                      Trebuchet_MS_Bold.ttf
andalemo.ttf            courbd.ttf                   georgiaz.ttf                     Trebuchet_MS_Italic.ttf
arialbd.ttf             courbi.ttf                   impact.ttf                       Trebuchet_MS.ttf
arialbi.ttf             Courier_New_Bold_Italic.ttf  Impact.ttf                       trebucit.ttf
Arial_Black.ttf         Courier_New_Bold.ttf         timesbd.ttf                      trebuc.ttf
Arial_Bold_Italic.ttf   Courier_New_Italic.ttf       timesbi.ttf                      Verdana_Bold_Italic.ttf
Arial_Bold.ttf          Courier_New.ttf              timesi.ttf                       Verdana_Bold.ttf
Arial_Italic.ttf        couri.ttf                    Times_New_Roman_Bold_Italic.ttf  verdanab.ttf
ariali.ttf              cour.ttf                     Times_New_Roman_Bold.ttf         Verdana_Italic.ttf
arial.ttf               Georgia_Bold_Italic.ttf      Times_New_Roman_Italic.ttf       verdanai.ttf
Arial.ttf               Georgia_Bold.ttf             Times_New_Roman.ttf              verdana.ttf
ariblk.ttf              georgiab.ttf                 times.ttf                        Verdana.ttf
comicbd.ttf             Georgia_Italic.ttf           trebucbd.ttf                     verdanaz.ttf
Comic_Sans_MS_Bold.ttf  georgiai.ttf                 trebucbi.ttf                     webdings.ttf
Comic_Sans_MS.ttf       georgia.ttf                  Trebuchet_MS_Bold_Italic.ttf     Webdings.ttf

[:ekoe]

Doesn't the fact that you're just getting black windows indicate that it could be something else? There's been plenty of steam-linux font problems before where text isn't displayed, but all windows, images, and graphics, still display their content correctly.
Also, I thought steam is supposed to use fallback fonts if it can't find the ones it needs. So I don't think the lack of proper fonts should be doing this

But could you try posting the output of

fc-match -s arial

[Legastenika]

First of all thanks for all the help here.

Hmm well im of course happy for any further ideas of what could cause this issue.

Here is the output of fc-match -s arial:

fc-match -s arial
Arial.ttf: "Arial" "Normal"
LiberationSans-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Sans" "Regular"
albw.ttf: "Albany AMT" "Regular"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Oblique"
DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold Oblique"
luxisr.ttf: "Luxi Sans" "Regular"
Waree.ttf: "Waree" "Book"
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
KhmerOS.ttf: "Khmer OS" "Regular"
MuktiNarrow.ttf: "Mukti Narrow" "Regular"
NanumGothic.ttf: "NanumGothic" "Regular"
UnDotum.ttf: "UnDotum" "Regular"
UnDotumBold.ttf: "UnDotum" "Bold"
lohit_bn.ttf: "Lohit Bengali" "Regular"
lohit_gu.ttf: "Lohit Gujarati" "Regular"
lohit_pa.ttf: "Lohit Punjabi" "Regular"
lohit_ta.ttf: "Lohit Tamil" "Regular"
Meera_04.ttf: "Meera" "Regular"
lklug.ttf: "LKLUG" "Regular"
wqy-microhei.ttc: "WenQuanYi Micro Hei" "Regular"
FreeSans.ttf: "FreeSans" "нормален"
gargi.ttf: "gargi" "Medium"
tuffy_regular.ttf: "Tuffy" "Regular"
CaslonRoman.ttf: "Caslon" "Roman"
Ubuntu-M.ttf: "Ubuntu" "Medium"
GohaTibebZemen.otf: "Goha-Tibeb Zemen" "Regular"
Rekha.ttf: "Rekha" "Medium"
utkal.ttf: "ori1Uni" "Medium"
FreeMono.ttf: "FreeMono" "нормален"
FreeSerif.ttf: "FreeSerif" "нормален"
opens___.ttf: "OpenSymbol" "Regular"
ume-pgc4.ttf: "Ume P Gothic C4" "Regular"
KacstOne.ttf: "KacstOne" "Regular"
Rachana_04.ttf: "Rachana" "Regular"
fonts-japanese-gothic.ttf: "TakaoPGothic" "Regular"
fontawesome-webfont.ttf: "FontAwesome" "Regular"
Courier_New.ttf: "Courier New" "Normal"
Padauk-book.ttf: "Padauk Book" "Regular"
DejaVuSerif.ttf: "DejaVu Serif" "Book"
NanumMyeongjo.ttf: "NanumMyeongjo" "Regular"
lmmono10-regular.otf: "Latin Modern Mono" "10 Regular"
lmmonoprop10-regular.otf: "Latin Modern Mono Prop" "10 Regular"
AccanthisADFStd-Regular.otf: "Accanthis ADF Std" "Regular"
latinmodernmath-regular.otf: "Latin Modern Math" "Regular"
TibetanMachineUni.ttf: "Tibetan Machine Uni" "Regular"
Pothana2000.ttf: "Pothana2000" "Pothana2000"
AbyssinicaSIL-R.ttf: "Abyssinica SIL" "Regular"
GenBasR.ttf: "Gentium Basic" "Regular"
GenR102.ttf: "Gentium" "Regular"
Sawasdee.ttf: "Sawasdee" "Regular"
SyrCOMKharput.otf: "Serto Kharput" "Regular"
acknowtt.ttf: "Acknowledge TT BRK" "Regular"
GFSArtemisia.otf: "GFS Artemisia" "Regular"
GFSNeohellenic.otf: "GFS Neohellenic" "Regular"
NanumBarunGothic.ttf: "NanumBarunGothic" "Regular"
Kedage-n.ttf: "Kedage" "Normal"
Asana-Math.otf: "Asana Math" "Regular"
Junicode.ttf: "Junicode" "Regular"
UnBatang.ttf: "UnBatang" "Regular"
UnGraphic.ttf: "UnGraphic" "Regular"
yudit.ttf: "Yudit" "LR"
Symbol.pfb: "Symbol" "Regular"
LiberationSansNarrow-Regular.ttf: "Liberation Sans Narrow" "Regular"
GFSArtemisiaBold.otf: "GFS Artemisia" "Bold"
GFSDidotBold.otf: "GFS Didot" "Bold"
UnGraphicBold.ttf: "UnGraphic" "Bold"
Junicode-Italic.ttf: "Junicode" "Italic"

Meanwhile i read somewhere that manually installed nvidia driver can cause some steam issues. So i uninstalled my manually one and apt-get installed the latest xorg-edgers nvidia-349. Brought up no changes, so im back at my manually nvidia drivers.

I have a HTPC where 14.04 is also installed and steam is running fine.

Maybe its not the badest idea to backup the non-working /usr/share/fonts and ~/.steam directories and copy over both directories from the HTPC where its working?

I never had to deal with fonts before :-O

[:ekoe]

Maybe you could try reinstalling steam? I'm assuming you don't have any steam games installed so losing data shouldn't be a problem. If you do try this, make sure to also delete the ~/.local/share/Steam directory before reinstalling
Are you installing it from the ubuntu package manager?

[JamieLinux]

Try

sudo apt-get install ttf-liberation

sense steam makes heavy use of that font.

if that doesnt work and you already have core fonts installed but there not working ..

sudo dpkg -P ttf-mscorefonts-installer  
sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer  

[Legastenika]

So i can say that copying the /usr/share/fonts and ~/local/share/Steam and ~/.steam folder from a working machine dont worked.

I the tried Jamies suggestions:

sudo apt-get install ttf-liberation
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
ttf-liberation is already the newest version

sudo dpkg -P ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Removing ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu1) ...
Purging configuration files for ttf-mscorefonts-installer (3.4+nmu1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for update-notifier-common (0.154.1ubuntu1) ...

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ttf-mscorefonts-installer
.
.
.
.
.

The result is the same as before.

After that i went with spacelikes suggestions:

sudo apt-get purge steam
sudo rm -rf ~/.steam
sudo rm -rf ~/.local/share/Steam

sudo apt-get install steam
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  steam:i386

which brings up steam a bit different.

There is some kind of font now, but not readable:

http://imgur.com/Fx7emWZ

http://imgur.com/anuMNi0

[Legastenika]

If i start steam now with steam &> steam.log the log views only:

rm: cannot remove ‘/home/USER/.steam/steam’: Is a directory
rm: cannot remove ‘/home/USER/.steam/bin’: Is a directory
Running Steam on ubuntu 14.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
/home/USER/.steam/steam.sh: line 765: STEAMSCRIPT_OUTOFDATE: unbound variable

I started steam until the login screen (picture 2 i posted one post before) pops up. As even there the fonts are curious i didnt stepped further...

[:ekoe]

I would try logging in anyway and getting to the main window.

Most of the screenshots in steam font bug reports with square characters like yours or scrambled text can at least see the big text links at the top of the window rendered correctly (the "store", "library", "community" buttons). So if you can see those it would give a clue
and it could also give steam a chance to download any updates

[Legastenika]

There was indeed a steam update after logging in but this does not solved the issue.

http://i.imgur.com/4kkegrx.png

Im out of a clue with this... in this case steam is not really usable for me.
Furthermore clicking icons like store/featured seems to not really work like it should. Seems like steam is still in some sort of loading screen. Apparently no content had loaded.

I dont want to reinstall the complete system which im sure would solve it.

[PixelGFX]

Navigate to ~/.fonts if this folder is empty so you have to download https://support.steampowered.com/downloads/1974-YFKL-4947/SteamFonts.zip
extract the content of this zip folder and copy the fonts in your ~/.fonts folder.

Restart Steam and you should have your fonts back.



Source: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1974-YFKL-4947

[Legastenika]

+1

works like a charm now...
thousands of thanks!!!
and i already saw that article but as i reas windows i ignored it :-O