Blurry fonts after update to fontconfig 2.11.1-0ubuntu9

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I too encountered the same issue after updating fontconfig. All bitmap fonts that I have installed on my system (that is terminus and unifont) are blurred in all applications (xfce4-terminal, sublime text, monodevelop, gtk font selection dialog). Downgrading helped in my case too.

Thanks for the report.

Before the upload of fontconfig 2.11.1-0ubuntu9 we also considered to instead upgrade to the upstream version 2.11.94. It's available in this PPA:

https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj/+archive/ubuntu/fontconfig-test2

Can you please test that fontconfig version, and let us know whether the problem goes away.

Does force-regenerating font cache using `fc-cache -f` help? The commit message in 3cd573f says:

> This may breaks the cache but not bumping in this change sets at this moment.
> please be aware if you want to try it and run fc-cache before/after to avoid
> the weird thing against it.

I didn't list the version-bump commit for cherry-picking.

Upstream HEAD git log with 'bitmap':
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/log/?qt=grep&q=bitmap&showmsg=1

The two 2015-05-27 commits, and the 2014-08-20 one look interesting.
I'm not sure if it's worth to try some extra cherry-picking though. Backporting is hard it seems.

By the way, upstream tagged 2.11.95 77 mins ago:
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/tree/README?id=13087e3

Force-regenerating font cache did not change anything, but updating fontconfig to the version in the provided ppa did fix this issue.

Since fontconfig 2.11.94 is on its way into the archive, I'd like to mention this "call for testing" message I posted to the ubuntu-devel mailing list:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2016-April/039303.html

This bug was fixed in the package fontconfig - 2.11.94-0ubuntu1

---------------
fontconfig (2.11.94-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * New upstream release (LP: #1556457)
    - Fixes blurry fonts regression from previous upload (LP: #1566651)
  * d/p/0001-Revert-Bug-73291-poppler-does-not-show-fl-ligature.patch,
    d/p/0002-demilight.patch:
    - Dropped, applied in new release
  * Bump freetype build dep to 2.5.1 as per configure.ac.
  * Drop gperf build dep again, not necessary any more.

 -- Gunnar Hjalmarsson <email address hidden> Sun, 03 Apr 2016 02:54:00 +0200