WORKAROUND: Unable to load any usable iso8859 font

[Jon TURNEY]

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linked_puffbird@comcast.net wrote:
> Dear Jon Turney,
> 
> Today I installed cygwin from scratch on a new laptop with Vista Home Premium.  I have gotten the "Unable to load any usable ISO8859 font." message when starting xterm.  I would suggest as a workaround that users experiencing this problem try uninstalling the font-alias package.  (The version I installed and uninstalled several times is 1.0.1-1.)  Uninstalling and reinstalling this eliminated and recreated problems.  The last time I reinstalled it, it did not cause the the above problem, but did cause the default path to come up wrong in tcsh and bash.  
> 
> I think the underlying problem may be related to the fact that postinstall scripts do not seem to be running correctly on this machine.  For different packages, I see similar messages in setup.log.full along the lines of those shown below.  I believe it may be happening for every postinstall script, because they all take a very long time, as if they were timing out.
> 
> Sincerely,
>   David
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------ from setup.log.full
> 
> 2009/06/14 14:25:07 running: C:\cygwin\bin\bash.exe -c /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh
>       5 [main] sh 4436 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 1278289 [main] sh 4436 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 3492971 [main] sh 4436 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 7629204 [main] sh 4436 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 15769988 [main] sh 4436 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
>       6 [main] sh 3288 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 1296137 [main] sh 3288 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 3463129 [main] sh 3288 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 7628057 [main] sh 3288 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 15771513 [main] sh 3288 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
>       6 [main] sh 4244 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 1247804 [main] sh 4244 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 3417015 [main] sh 4244 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 7551184 [main] sh 4244 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 15694516 [main] sh 4244 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
>       6 [main] sh 3628 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 1250144 [main] sh 3628 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 3401141 [main] sh 3628 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 7535070 [main] sh 3628 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 15678284 [main] sh 3628 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
>       6 [main] sh 4536 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 1247102 [main] sh 4536 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 3383669 [main] sh 4536 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 7518999 [main] sh 4536 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 15631750 [main] sh 4536 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
>       6 [main] sh 4384 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 1232152 [main] sh 4384 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 3369315 [main] sh 4384 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 7503853 [main] sh 4384 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> 15647124 [main] sh 4384 fork: child -1 - died waiting for longjmp before initialization, retry 10, exit code 0x1000000, errno 11
> /etc/postinstall/font-alias.sh: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable
> 2009/06/14 14:26:44 abnormal exit: exit code=128
> 2009/06/14 14:26:48 note: Installation Complete
> 2009/06/14 14:26:48 Ending cygwin install
>  
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Jon TURNEY wrote:
>> ThinkDifferently wrote:
>>> My solution was, at the very least, to re-run setup.exe and to install
>>> the
>>> package "font-misc-misc".  Once I did that, XWin stopped hanging and
>>> xterm
>>> and xclock ran without a hitch.
>>>
>>> I found this nugget of information buried deep in the 
>>> http://www.nabble.com/forum/Reply.jtp?post=21828473 Cygwin/X FAQ page ,
>>> section 9.4, sub-item 1.  To quote:
>>>
>>> "You do not have a font package which provides the default font ('fixed')
>>> installed. This is rarely the problem; but in the event that it is the
>>> problem, just rerun Cygwin's setup.exe, select the font-misc-misc package
>>> and install it."
>>>
>>> I find the phrase "This is rarely the problem" to be ironic, considering
>>> that it seems to be the most common, based on what I've read.
>> Well, in fact, this FAQ is obsolete.  The fixed font is now available
>> built-in 
>> to the server, so it starts even when no font packages are installed (to
>> avoid 
>> precisely this kind of configuration problem)
>>
>> With 1.5.3-6 xserver, it should never happen that the server fails to
>> start 
>> "could not open default font 'fixed'". (In fact, since 1.5.3-3, but there
>> was 
>> a bug in libXft which caused it to fail to find 'fixed' after a server
>> restart)
>>
>>> The problem (lately) is that font-misc-misc is a prerequisite, but it is
>>> not
>>> (no longer?) flagged as one by setup.exe when you choose the various xorg
>>> packages.
>>>
>>> The packages I installed were...
>>> + xauth
>>> + xclock
>>> + xcursor-themes
>>> + xhost
>>> + xinit
>>> + xkbcomp
>>> + xkeyboard-config
>>> + xmodmap
>>> + xorg-server
>>> + xrdb 
>>> + xterm
>>> None of these flagged font-misc-misc, but when I installed the font
>>> package
>>> manually, the above packages all started working.
>>>
>>> BUG!
>> Yes, there is a bug.
>>
>> Installing the "font-misc-misc" package is a workaround.
>>
>> But, no, it's not the obvious packaging error that "font-misc-misc" should
>> be 
>> in the dependencies for packages which use the 'fixed' font, as that font
>> is 
>> now available 'built-in' to the server and the server starts with no fonts 
>> installed.
>>
>> It seems the specific error message quoted "Unable to load any usable
>> ISO8859 
>> font", comes from libXt [1], when it has failed to find the requested
>> font, it 
>> tries a fallback of "-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*", which should
>> match 
>> the always-available, built-in fixed font.
>>
>> I have no problems starting xterm just using the built-in fonts
>>
>> $ xset fp built-ins
>> [or start the server with -fp built-ins, or uninstall all font packages]
>> $ xlsfonts -fn "-*-*-*-R-*-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-ISO8859-*"
>> -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--12-120-75-75-c-0-iso8859-1
>> -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1
>> $ xterm
>> [starts with no error]
>>
>> So, why some people see this error is a mystery to me.  The first post in
>> this 
>> thread seems to pin the blame on something which changed recently,
>> possibly 
>> xserver 1.5.3-5, but I can't reproduce it and can't see any changes which
>> seem 
>> likely suspects...
>>
>> Entered into bugzilla
>> http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9839
>>
>> [1] http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXt/tree/src/Converters.c
>>
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>>
>>
> Quoted from: 
> http://www.nabble.com/Unable-to-load-any-usable-iso8859-font-tp21793574p21980893.html


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