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gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

Graphical Environments, Managers, Multimedia & Desktop questions.
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Jon Clark
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-04-12 10:10

gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#1 Post by Jon Clark »

Hi,

I have problems with the gnustep-back-common package. It does not configure correctly. This problem began after an upgrade from Debian 7 to Debian 8. I have searched on line for a solution, but not found anything to help me.

System details:

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[jclark@circle 12:40:18 ~]$ cat /etc/issue
Debian GNU/Linux 8 \n \l

[jclark@circle 16:54:07 ~]$ uname -a
Linux circle 3.16.0-5-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.16.51-3+deb8u1 (2018-01-08) i686 GNU/Linux
Package details:

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[jclark@circle 16:44:02 ~]$ dpkg -l | grep gnustep-back-common
iF  gnustep-back-common                               0.24.0-4                                   i386         GNUstep GUI Backend - common files

To produce the error:

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[jclark@circle 10:38:36 3158]$ sudo dpkg --configure gnustep-back-common 
Setting up gnustep-back-common (0.24.0-4) ...
Generating GNUstep nfont descriptions... failed, see /var/log/gnustep-back-common.log.
dpkg: error processing package gnustep-back-common (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 gnustep-back-common

The created log file contains 188 lines of output:

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[jclark@circle 10:41:32 3158]$ wc -l /var/log/gnustep-back-common.log 
188 /var/log/gnustep-back-common.log
with only two lines that did not report a warning about parsing a font:

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[jclark@circle 10:43:28 3158]$ grep --line-number -v "warning: couldn't fully parse" /var/log/gnustep-back-common.log 
78:couldn't get postscript name for /usr/share/fonts/local/local/ttfonts/marlett.ttf, ignoring
188:mknfonts: Uncaught exception NSInvalidArgumentException, reason: Tried to add nil value for key 'NSCurrencySymbol' to dictionary
The last line reporting the "Uncaught exception" looks significant.



The configure error and resulting log file are generated by the gnustep-back-common postinstall script "/var/lib/dpkg/info/gnustep-back-common.postinst".

The script commands that generates the log file and the failure:

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      mknfonts $(fc-list : file | grep -v '\.gz' | cut -d: -f1) \
      2>/var/log/gnustep-back-common.log \
        || (echo " failed, see /var/log/gnustep-back-common.log."; exit 1)
The "fc-list" command lists fonts available on the system. In this use it returns 1719 font file locations:

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[jclark@circle 16:00:07 Fonts]$ pwd
/var/lib/GNUstep/Fonts

[jclark@circle 16:00:34 Fonts]$ fc-list : file | grep -v '\.gz' | wc -l
1719
Is it possible that "mknfonts" can't handle being passed 1719 arguments?

I don't how to fix this or what to do next. Has anyone seen this before, or can anyone offer some advice please?

All help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jon

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bw123
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Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#2 Post by bw123 »

78:couldn't get postscript name for /usr/share/fonts/local/local/ttfonts/marlett.ttf, ignoring
Might not be the problem, but this is strange path? Looks like you installed some local fonts, and one of them isn't a "good" font with a currency symbol?

If you go somewhere near line 188 in the log, maybe it will tell you which font?
resigned by AI ChatGPT

Jon Clark
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-04-12 10:10

Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#3 Post by Jon Clark »

Thanks for your reply. I have removed all of the fonts in "/usr/share/fonts/local" from the system, but unfortunately this has not solved the problem. It may be one of the other hundreds of fonts on the system that is causing the problem, but without more information about which font causes the error I am not sure how to fix this. I will try removing some of the larger directories of fonts and re-configuring gnustep-back-common.

It worked before the upgrade from Debian 7 to 8 (which caused gnustep-back-common to upgrade from 0.20.1-2.1 to 0.24.0-4). I wonder what has caused this.

Jon Clark
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-04-12 10:10

Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#4 Post by Jon Clark »

I have systematically removed every font from the system and configured the gnustep-back-common package. It fails on every attempt.

It doesn't look to be a problem related to a specific font.

Jon Clark
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-04-12 10:10

Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#5 Post by Jon Clark »

I have managed to narrow this down to be an error returned by "mknfonts" regardless of the font file provided as an argument:

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[jclark@circle 09:20:52 3158]$ mknfonts /usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont/FreeMono.ttf 
mknfonts: Uncaught exception NSInvalidArgumentException, reason: Tried to add nil value for key 'NSCurrencySymbol' to dictionary

[jclark@circle 09:21:13 3158]$ mknfonts /usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont/FreeSans.ttf 
mknfonts: Uncaught exception NSInvalidArgumentException, reason: Tried to add nil value for key 'NSCurrencySymbol' to dictionary

rb127078
Posts: 2
Joined: 2018-07-10 15:34

Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#6 Post by rb127078 »

Before I start digging into the innards of mkfonts, did anybody find a solution to this? I have the same problem:

root@tumult:/# mknfonts /usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont/FreeMono.ttf
mknfonts: Uncaught exception NSInvalidArgumentException, reason: Tried to add nil value for key 'NSCurrencySymbol' to dictionary

Causes gnustep-back-common to fail to install properly.

rb127078
Posts: 2
Joined: 2018-07-10 15:34

Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#7 Post by rb127078 »

Never mind. I found the problem. It seems to be to do with locale. Mine was set to LANG=en_GB.ISO-8859-15. I set it to be LANG=en_GB.utf8 uninstalled and re-installed gnustep, no errors :D ... it doesn't address the underlying issue which seems to be the handling of ISO unicode fonts, but will do for now

Jon Clark
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-04-12 10:10

Re: gnustep-back-common package configuration failure

#8 Post by Jon Clark »

Thank you very much for posting your solution. I found that my locale was set to LANG=en_GB. By setting it to LANG=en_GB.utf8 I have been able to complete the installation of gnustep-back-common.

I used:

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$ sudo update-locale LANG=en_GB.utf8
to change the setting globally on my Debian 8 server.

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