Cannot see MS Sans Serif in program

[chiron]

Hi, I have one application, a Windows program called ZET that does not display the MS Sans Serif font.
I have this same program installed on a different distro, Salix, and it has no such problems.
I have tried all kind of things, one of which was trying to update Wine to 1.7 (complains about broken apps so no luck there)
I have checked the Wine Registry and the font is definitely listed there.
So I am stumped.
Any help would be appreciated.
Paul.

[Bob Wya]

Hi, I have one application, a Windows program called ZET that does not display the MS Sans Serif font.
I have this same program installed on a different distro, Salix, and it has no such problems.
I have tried all kind of things, one of which was trying to update Wine to 1.7 (complains about broken apps so no luck there)
I have checked the Wine Registry and the font is definitely listed there.
So I am stumped.
Any help would be appreciated.
Paul.

If your trying to use an older Wine version it might be from back when the dwrite.dll library was still partially stubbed (ie just a set of placeholder calls). Pure speculation of course because you haven't posted any console output. See WineHQ Wine FAQ: 10.1.1 How can I get a debugging log (a.k.a. terminal output)? ...

Are we allowed to know what the mysterious old/broken distribution you are trying to "defibrillate" is? I ask because if you cannot even upgrade it to an unsupported version of Wine (since currently only Wine stable 1.8 + is officially supported)??!!

Bob

[chiron]

Hi, the program is called ZET, which is an astrology come astronomy program, it is current and still supported, I have asked the programmer, but he knows nothing about Wine and of course he has no idea as to the cause of the problem.

[Bob Wya]

Well I was actually trying to ask what distribution of Linux you're using... Unless it's a less obvious Desktop target (e.g. CentOS can be problematic for example) then there is usually an official WineHQ repository with latest Wine (and Wine-Staging) releases. If your pre-existing Wine version is old and broken - then you need to "get it out of here"!!

1. I setup a 32-bit Wineprefix.

   Code: Select all

   export WINEARCH=win32
   export WINEPREFIX="${PWD}/zet_32"
   winecfg

2. I installed the ZET 9 installer using:

   Code: Select all

   wine ~/Downloads/ZET9SETUP229-EN.exe 

3. The application appears to runs out-of-the box on wine-1.9.12-161-g754c681 (Staging) (my current live Git build) without any noticeable font issues - see below.
4. There is some console spam of:

   Code: Select all

   fixme:font:freetype_SelectFont Untranslated charset 255

   So it might need to some poking around to find additional set is missing.
5. I didn't need to pull in any extra fonts on my system (as I have already pulled over all the Windows 7 fonts as Linux system fonts). But you might need to do:

   Code: Select all

   winetricks corefonts

on your system.

Bob

[Nystagmus]

Check your virtual c:\Windows\Fonts folder.
You can manually copy any essential .TTF (TrueTypeFont) files into that and reboot.
You can copy them off of a friend's Windows computer; they will still work in Wine if they are .TTF files.
This is actually needed to run programs like FL Studio too.
What is needed is called the Microsoft Windows "Core Fonts". You can find the core fonts on the internet available for download and they might be in Synaptic too. But for legal reasons they can't be distributed in Linux distros. But you can still install them manually without legal issues.

[chiron]

Tried to uninstall ZET, no dice, made the Wine prefix as above, did the "Winetricks corefonts" from the command line, which apparently were already present, but some work seemed to take place associating these with the new Wine prefix. Reinstalled ZET over the version present, still same problem.
Checked and the fonts are present in the "c:\windows\fonts" directory; in fact it has all the fonts present on my old Windows XP machine, apart from some decorative fonts.
There has to be something wrong with Wine on this machine, as ZET shows all the fonts on an old HP Notebook that has the Salix distro installed.
Anyhow, the distro on the problem computer is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and the version that comes up for Wine is 1.6.2.
Could I have a conflict somewhere? Maybe a duplicate pointer to the required fonts?
Paul.

[Bob Wya]

...
Anyhow, the distro on the problem computer is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and the version that comes up for Wine is 1.6.2.
...

That version of Wine is over 2 years old and is no longer supported - you really need to test with the latest version of Wine. The fact that your application worked for me, with a newer version of Wine, should have suggested this even more strongly to you... Re-enforcing the fact that your version of Wine is obsolete... Yes you need to fix this first!!

1. Please uninstall every last scrap of the bundled Wine 1.6.2 from your package tree with Synaptic, aptitude, etc. Purge everything! Get it out of here!!
2. Then carefully follow the guide at https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu.
3. Please carefully read the packaging notes - as there are significant changes in the way Wine is packaged versus the Ubuntu distribution ppa packages you may/ will have been used to.
   (For example the WineHQ packages are now installed in /opt/wine-devel .)

Bob

[chiron]

OK, uninstall Wine, Winetricks, Play On Wine, etc.
I guess this means reinstalling all the programs after I have reinstalled the later version of Wine.
Ah well, it's got a couple more issues so it sounds like it's got to be done.
Is this done from the command line? Clearly there would be a lot of bits hidden in dark corners of Ubuntu and would not have an idea as to where to look for these.
I have used Linux for a while, but am basically still a novice. So some help would be appreciated.

[Bob Wya]

OK, uninstall Wine, Winetricks, Play On Wine, etc.
I guess this means reinstalling all the programs after I have reinstalled the later version of Wine.
Ah well, it's got a couple more issues so it sounds like it's got to be done.
Is this done from the command line? Clearly there would be a lot of bits hidden in dark corners of Ubuntu and would not have an idea as to where to look for these.
I have used Linux for a while, but am basically still a novice. So some help would be appreciated.

1. PlayOnLinux should be OK to leave - as it either just uses the system Wine version or it's own bundled versions of Wine.
2. winetricks is just a BASH script. Just make sure it's up-to-date:

   Code: Select all

   winetricks --version
   20160622 - sha1sum: 99a5b13681aa687e718a0e13f441893fd050785b

   (As it works like a sort of Windows package manager, the developer has to track changing URL's and software versions)

If you are a novice I'd recommend just searching for wine in the Synaptic package manager!! If you get stuck I'll poke about in my (multiboot) Ubuntu install to see what Debian wine packages are installed by default (although that's already updated to 16.04 now). But it's always best if you have a crack yourself! You don't learn anything by getting to much hand-holding (in my experience)...

Bob

[chiron]

Finally got a chance to deal with this.
First tried updating wine

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubunti/wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.7

No dice, complains there are broken packages.

Then tried to uninstall wine first:

sudo apt-get remove wine
rm -rf $home/.wine
rm -f $home/.config/menus/applications-merged/wine*
rm -rf $home/.local/share/applications/wine
rm -f $home/.local/share/desktop-directories/wine*
rm -f $home/.local/share/icons/????_*.xpm
sudo apt-get remove -purge wine (this came up with an error about the -p option)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

Had a look under "alacarte" but this just remained blank, so could do nothing there.
Tried a wine program, this worked fine, so wine had obviously not been removed.
However when I tried to install wine 1.7x, this time it automatically uninstalled version 1.6 and installed fine.
Although there were problems with wine-mono, it showed that this was installed during the installation of wine 1.7 but programs complained that it was not installed. Tried to install this through the box that came up, but the problem persisted. I then installed it from the command line, seems to be OK so we will see how we go.

After all that, the "invisible font" problem persists; so in that respect nothing has changed.
I just wonder whether having duplicate .ttf fonts installed in Ubuntu AND in wine could be creating the problem.
Anyway, I am open to suggestions, but am close to giving up.

[dimesio]

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubunti/wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.7

Wrong ppa and wrong packages; Wine 1.7.x is still too old, and is no longer supported. Use the WineHQ packages from the WineHQ ppa as specified in the instructions Bob linked you to, and which you apparently didn't read. https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu

[Bob Wya]

Finally got a chance to deal with this.
First tried updating wine

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubunti/wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.7

No dice, complains there are broken packages.

I demonstrated the application working on Wine-Staging version 1.9.12 (Git) - with screenshots supplied!! Yet you are trying to install a the obsolete Ubuntu PPA. Ubuntu users need to use the WineHQ official PPA...

I've suggested using Synaptic - a graphic package manager. You can also use it to add the official WineHQ PPA - if you so wish. Synaptic will resolve package dependencies. Lets you see what versions of packages you are installing and will also let you see what files are contained within a package (i.e. all the directories and files that a specific to a package - that are installed on your system).

If you can't figure out what crufty, cruft random Debian/Ubuntu package is letting you run wine commands then use:

Code: Select all

dpkg -S $(which wine)

Some general packaging comments (perhaps not related to the original question)... Don't worry it's just me having a rant
Debian/Ubuntu's packaging scheme (.debs) are very painful to produce and using them could be a whole lot simpler.
Launchpad is a total joke - especially the PPA page. Just try searching for Wine - you're hit by a million random PPA's. 99% are out of date...

Bob

[chiron]

Hi, the above "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubunti/wine/ppa" was a spelling error, it should have read: "sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa"
I did it right on the command line, otherwise obviously nothing would have happened.
Sorry.
Will try the recommendations from the Wine Website today, as originally recommended.

[chiron]

Have tried the recommendations from the above link, and I am now up to Wine 1.8.13; it appears that this is the correct one for my Distro, Ubuntu 14.04.
Still the same problem persists, although I have (re)installed the Microsoft Core fonts.
I still have a feeling it is a font conflict (more than one instance of a font, one or more under Ubuntu and one in Wine); or perhaps the program cannot find the correct font in the Wine Registry.
I am stumped, particularly as the program in question runs faultlessly under Wine on an old notebook with Salix.
So any ideas would be welcome.

[Bob Wya]

Have tried the recommendations from the above link, and I am now up to Wine 1.8.13; it appears that this is the correct one for my Distro, Ubuntu 14.04.
Still the same problem persists, although I have (re)installed the Microsoft Core fonts.
I still have a feeling it is a font conflict (more than one instance of a font, one or more under Ubuntu and one in Wine); or perhaps the program cannot find the correct font in the Wine Registry.

Hi chiron,

You're the first person I've met running Wine version 1.8.13!! Impressive

Try running the Wine Registry editor:

Code: Select all

wine regedit

Then navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Fonts
As you can see I've got tonnes of System fonts, that Wine has imported here... But some will be the Windows System fonts I've imported.

So compare that imported font list with your own Wine installation / Wineprefix with the ZET program installed.

Some console output - from your installation of ZET 9 - would also be useful...

Your imported font list and the Wine console log - should be enough to track down what's missing or gone wrong somewhere!!

Bob

Plz can you use the WineHQ Forum -

Code: Select all

Code

- tags to delimit console commands you are typing in - from your regular post text!!
Thanks!!

[chiron]

Hi, thanks for your help so far. I have done a search through the Wine Registry to discover where there are lists of fonts; and it appears there are many lists. I have exported all these; they are in the attached Zip archive.
I have also listed the execution of the program from the terminal, which seems to show some problems.

paul@Hermes-III:~/.wine/drive_c/Timelords/ZET 9$ wine zet.exe
fixme:heap:RtlSetHeapInformation (nil) 1 (nil) 0 stub
fixme:heap:RtlSetHeapInformation (nil) 1 (nil) 0 stub
fixme:wtsapi:WTSEnumerateSessionsW Stub (nil) 0x00000000 0x00000001 0x86e134 0x86e130
fixme:wtsapi:WTSFreeMemory Stub (nil)
fixme:actctx:parse_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly L"Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" (6.0.0.0)
fixme:font:freetype_SelectFont Untranslated charset 255
err:ole:CoInitializeEx Attempt to change threading model of this apartment from multi-threaded to apartment threaded
fixme:font:freetype_SelectFont Untranslated charset 255
fixme:font:freetype_SelectFont Untranslated charset 255
fixme:actctx:parse_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly L"Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" (6.0.0.0)
paul@Hermes-III:~/.wine/drive_c/Timelords/ZET 9$

I presume that some of the errors shown above are due to executing the program from the command line, as they do not come up if the program is executed from its launcher on the Desktop.
Anyhow, the problems lie far outside the limits of my knowledge and expertise, but if someone has any ideas as regards what may be wrong I will give trying to fix this a go.
Just as an aside, I have a Windows XP machine as well as a Linux Salix Distro with Wine on which the program runs perfectly, so registry comparisons can be made; I just would not have a clue where to start.

[Bob Wya]

The imported font lists look OK... So that's a bit weird

But here's the console output from a run of ZET 9.2.29-Lite on my system...

Code: Select all

wine zet.exe
fixme:font:freetype_SelectFont Untranslated charset 255
err:ole:CoInitializeEx Attempt to change threading model of this apartment from multi-threaded to apartment threaded
fixme:font:freetype_SelectFont Untranslated charset 255

About as clean as it gets for Wine!!

No overrides or extras were used/installed:

Code: Select all

winetricks list-installed
Using winetricks 20160627 - sha1sum: 49a061ce0ce08797e4e11b7ae28a19ec58d04080 with wine-1.9.14

So clearly I'm just pulling my (already imported) Windows 7 fonts (from my Linux fonts directory) to do all the fancy symbol (as need).

But then your version of Wine - referring to your exported registry entries - is successfully doing the same thing. The native Linux fonts path: /usr/share/fonts , is mangled to: Z:\usr\share\fonts - by Wine to mimic a Windows style path.

What I used for the run:

Code: Select all

wine --version
wine-1.9.14

Can you check the output from:

Code: Select all

winetricks list-installed
wine --version

Are you using a 32-bit Wineprefix as recommended - for initial testing?
Are you able to test the Zet-Lite application - if you are using a different version (e.g. more fully-featured)?

We've just got to narrow down what the elusive difference is - between our Zet installs!!

Bob

[chiron]

Hello Bob, I was curious about a couple of issues.
One, it seems that the fonts list in my version of the Wine Registry exists in a different part of the Registry than yours, my query on this is primarily the reason as to why I sent all those reg file exports.
Secondly, I have since found the wine prefixes directory, but there is no Wine prefix for ZET. I doubt that this is problematic as there is none on the Salix system and that runs the exact same version of ZET fine; ZET also ran fine in the past on a previous version of Ubuntu (version 12 something), so something must have changed.
Thirdly, I am running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu, so I presume that it all defaults to 32-bit automatically?
Anyhow, I will try the above a bit later today and post these in a reply.
Thanks again, Paul.

[Bob Wya]

Yup,

1. default Wineprefix of ~/.wine is fine!
2. 32-bit Linux OS means all Wineprefix's will be 32-bit

So that's all fine!
Bob

[chiron]

Hello Bob, cranked up the old notebook with Salix and found that the places in the Wine Registry where the fonts are listed are identical. So that was obviously a wild goose-chase on my behalf. Incidentally, the version of Wine on the Salix notebook is version 1.3, but that would be to save space as the Salix Distro is designed to run on old low-spec machines with tiny hard-drives.
Anyhow, here is the listing you asked for:

paul@Hermes-III:~$ winetricks list-installed
baekmuk
cambria
cmd
comctl32ocx
comctl32
comdlg32ocx
consolas
constantia
corefonts
crypt32
d3dx10
d3dx11_42
d3dx11_43
d3dx9_26
d3dx9_28
d3dx9_31
d3dx9_35
d3dx9_36
d3dx9_39
d3dx9_42
d3dx9_43
d3dx9
d3dxof
devenum
dinput8
dirac
directmusic
directplay
directx9
dmsynth
dotnet20sdk
dotnet20
dotnet30sp1
dotnet35sp1
dotnet35
dotnet40
droid
dsound
eufonts
flash
gdiplus
gdiplus_winxp
ie7
ie8
jet40
l3codecx
liberation
lucida
mdac27
mdac28
mfc40
mfc42
msasn1
msls31
msscript
msvcirt
msxml3
msxml4
opensymbol
physx
pngfilt
quartz
quicktime76
richtx32
tabctl32
tahoma
takao
uff
unifont
vb2run
vb3run
vb4run
vb5run
vb6run
vcrun2008
vcrun6sp6
vcrun6
wenquanyi
wininet
wsh56vb
wsh57
xact_jun2010
xact
xinput
xmllite
paul@Hermes-III:~$
paul@Hermes-III:~$ wine --version
wine-1.9.13
paul@Hermes-III:~$

I have also checked with Anatoly Zaytsev, the author of ZET, as to the font used in the areas that do not show and his reply is:

This is standard font "MS Sans Serif", it uses in many other places of ZET

So I presume that seeing this is the only font issue, maybe it is not related to fonts at all.
Thanking you, Paul.

[Bob Wya]

...
Anyhow, here is the listing you asked for:

Code: Select all

paul@Hermes-III:~$ winetricks list-installed
baekmuk
cambria
cmd
comctl32ocx
comctl32
comdlg32ocx
consolas
constantia
corefonts
crypt32
d3dx10
d3dx11_42
d3dx11_43
d3dx9_26
d3dx9_28
d3dx9_31
d3dx9_35
d3dx9_36
d3dx9_39
d3dx9_42
d3dx9_43
d3dx9
d3dxof
devenum
dinput8
dirac
directmusic
directplay
directx9
dmsynth
dotnet20sdk
dotnet20
dotnet30sp1
dotnet35sp1
dotnet35
dotnet40
droid
dsound
eufonts
flash
gdiplus
gdiplus_winxp
ie7
ie8
jet40
l3codecx
liberation
lucida
mdac27
mdac28
mfc40
mfc42
msasn1
msls31
msscript
msvcirt
msxml3
msxml4
opensymbol
physx
pngfilt
quartz
quicktime76
richtx32
tabctl32
tahoma
takao
uff
unifont
vb2run
vb3run
vb4run
vb5run
vb6run
vcrun2008
vcrun6sp6
vcrun6
wenquanyi
wininet
wsh56vb
wsh57
xact_jun2010
xact
xinput
xmllite
paul@Hermes-III:~$
paul@Hermes-III:~$ 
...

Your default Wineprefix is totally busted...!! I thought your console output was a bit "rum"...

Installing Microsoft utilities, native dll's and API layers (e.g. dotnet) is only recommended - when really, really needed!! They all tend to hook more deeply into native Windows... But we're not running Windows - we're running a compatibility layer!!

Remember how I DETAILED the INSTRUCTIONS I used to setup the Zet application on my laptop (see many, many posts back!!) I DIDN'T USE ANY overrides or winetricks magic at all!!

I use a single Wineprefix per Windows application on Desktop and Laptop. Clean and portable. Each one can be transferred independently to another machine / Linux OS.

See how to use Wineprefixes WineHQ Wineprefixes section... If that's not clear enough - then ask some questions here - now!! I'll try and explain it better.

Because you're only using the default Wineprefix location (~/.wine) you'll definitely need to "clean house" and start over:

Code: Select all

rm -rf ~/.wine

Bob

[chiron]

Hello Bob, I presume the above deletes the .wine directory and all it contains.
So before I take this momentous step, that would require the re-installation of all my Windows based programs, there are a couple of concerns.
Some programs like Microsoft Office 2007 are installed elsewhere: "/home/paul/.local/share/wineprefixes". Is this a problem?
I will clearly need Wine to generate a new .wine directory with all the subdirectories needed by Wine in place of the old one. How do I go about this?
Thanks, Paul.

[Bob Wya]

Hello Bob, I presume the above deletes the .wine directory and all it contains.
So before I take this momentous step, that would require the re-installation of all my Windows based programs, there are a couple of concerns.
Some programs like Microsoft Office 2007 are installed elsewhere: "/home/paul/.local/share/wineprefixes". Is this a problem?
I will clearly need Wine to generate a new .wine directory with all the subdirectories needed by Wine in place of the old one. How do I go about this?
Thanks, Paul.

Paul,

If you have some non-default Wineprefixes, e.g. setup by winetricks in /home/paul/.local/share/wineprefixes, these are unaffected by altering or removing Wineprefixes elsewhere on the system. The Wineprefix model is to allow each one to act as a "self-contained" Virtual Windows installation. Assuming you don't personally add in some weird cross linking or dubious bind mounting!" The default is add symlinks within from your Wineprefix C:\users\Wine User\ directory (e.g. /home/paul/.wine/drive_c/users/paul/) back to your Linux/Wine user "${HOME}" ~ directory (/home/paul/). Personally I usually remove these with:

Code: Select all

winetricks sandbox

To check what Windows programs are installed in a Wineprefix you can type:

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wine uninstaller

to invoke a simple Wine GUI utility for uninstalling Windows applications. Just check you're not wiping anything important!

To recreate the default Wineprefix you simply type:

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winecfg

or

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wineboot

A default native architecture (in your case 32-bit), Windows XP Wineprefix is setup automatically:

1. Wine virtual registry files are created & stored in ~/.wine/
2. A drive C:\ structure is create at ~/.wine/drive_c
3. System drives are enumerated and Virtual Drive letters assigned in ~/.wine/dosdevices

So everything is there in seconds - ready to start installing your stuff!

Bob

[chiron]

Hello Bob,
Obviously this is not an area of expertise for me, so please be patient, as I am seriously confused.
So to clarify,
I first check what is installed and note this down for re-installation purposes:

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wine uninstaller

To remove all the compromised Wine prefixes I type as follows on the command line:

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sudo rm -rf ~/.wine

Then to remove any outstanding stuff I do this:

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winetricks sandbox

To recreate ".wine" directory and the stuff it needs I type as follows:

Code: Select all

winecfg

or

Code: Select all

wineboot

Thanks, Paul.

[Bob Wya]

Hello Bob,
Obviously this is not an area of expertise for me, so please be patient, as I am seriously confused.
So to clarify,
I first check what is installed and note this down for re-installation purposes:

Code: Select all

wine uninstaller

Not really. You said you were worried about removing "important" Windows applications. So you could check if you have anything "important" installed, in your default Wineprefix, before you blow it away!! E.g. Microsoft Office, etc.
As I previously stated you shouldn't need any "helper" Microsoft libraries installed to get ZET 9 to run. It should just install and run "out of the box" in a clean Wineprefix.

To remove all the compromised Wine prefixes I type as follows on the command line:

Code: Select all

sudo rm -rf ~/.wine

No you should never run Wine as your Linux root user - see WineHQ FAQ: Should I run Wine as root.
So that should be just:

Code: Select all

rm -rf ~/.wine

Then to remove any outstanding stuff I do this:

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winetricks sandbox

No I purposefully prefaced that with "I do"... Don't bother with this till you've got your "training wheels" off!!

To recreate ".wine" directory and the stuff it needs I type as follows:

Code: Select all

winecfg

or

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wineboot

Yes, though really to be pedantic running any Windows application (via Wine) or wine utility - will automatically run wineboot. It's wineboot which will create a Wineprefix (if it doesn't already exist)... Don't sweat that - it's just details!!

Hope that's reasonably clear!!

Bob