Console is empty / invisible text on console window

[nabing8]

Your system information

• System information from steam (Steam -> Help -> System Information) in a gist:
• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes]
• Are you using the latest stable video driver available for your system? [Yes]
• Have you verified the game files?: [Yes]

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Console is empty or the text is invisible. The textbox on the bottom works fine. Commands entered work properly (like disconnect, quit) , just no output/text is seen on console.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Open console, its empty.
2. Type something on textbox, there text is seen properly.
3. Enter command, console is still empty.

[kisak-valve]

Hello @pyyro, can you check if your system has ttf-liberation installed, and if not, does installing it have an effect? (from #120)

[nabing8]

Thanks for the quick reply @kisak-valve, ttf-liberation 2.1.3-1 is installed on my system.

[nabing8]

If it helps, i've had this issue since the mistwoods update on 17th Dec 2020

[nabing8]

@kisak-valve I ran steam from terminal, when I open console it says (process:36156): Pango-WARNING **: Error in FT_Set_Char_Size: 23

[kisak-valve]

Found a reference to that warning in https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=353495, which hints that FreeType selected an incompatible (bitmap?) font from what's available on the system.

[SirFireball3521]

Hello, I'm having the same issue and I've noticed something. If you click and drag over the terminal you are able to select the invisible text. It is possible to copy paste out of terminal using this.

[antoinerc]

Hi, I suffer the same issue on an Arch Linux system (link to gist: https://gist.github.com/antoinerc/0dd947d40b54857c3232c11c0d860e42). ttf-liberation is also installed on the system and the warning in the console is the same.

[tehybel]

I, too, got errors like Error in FT_Set_Char_Size: 23 and Pango-WARNING **: Invalid UTF-8 string passed to pango_layout_set_text(). After some experimentation I've found out the issue. There's a fontconfig file, fonts.conf, that disables Type 1 fonts. These fonts are required (at least on some Linux setups) to render the console text.

To fix this, edit the file dota 2 beta/game/core/panorama/fonts/fonts.conf. Comment out or delete the following lines:

    <!-- Ban Type-1 fonts because they render poorly -->
    <!-- Comment this out to allow all Type 1 fonts -->
    <selectfont>
        <rejectfont>
            <pattern>
                <patelt name="fontformat" >
                    <string>Type 1</string>
                </patelt>
            </pattern>
        </rejectfont>
    </selectfont>

You may also need the xorg-fonts-type1 package for this to make a difference.

I've made the change and undone it again multiple times, and this consistently fixes the missing (invisible) console text once I restart dota. It also helps with performance in the main menu.