# Firefox and UTF8 breaking



## stratacast1 (Jan 22, 2021)

I've encountered a strange issue with Firefox on FreeBSD. I have UTF8 working by editing my `.login_conf` file:


```
me:\
        :charset=UTF-8:\
        :lang=en_US.UTF-8:
```

And UTF8 works fine in my browser, however over time Firefox no longer knows how to read non-ASCII text in my browser (normally it ends up being Japanese) until I restart it. Is this a Firefox issue or is there something I should be editing to make it so I'm not having to regularly restart Firefox?

Not sure if this is bad but I also set charset to UTF-8 and lang=C.UTF-8 in the default section of my `/etc/login.conf` file and hashed it


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## a6h (Jan 24, 2021)

stratacast1 said:


> UTF8 works fine in my browser, however over time Firefox no longer knows how to read non-ASCII text in my browser


Create another Firefox profile, and check if you have the same problem with new profile.



stratacast1 said:


> Not sure if this is bad but I also set charset to UTF-8 and lang=C.UTF-8 in the default section of my `/etc/login.conf` file and hashed it


1. I personally prefer to edit ~/.login_conf. For detailed information, refer to login.conf(5).
2. Just make sure to run `cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf`, after editting /etc/login.conf.
More info at https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/using-localization.html


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## stratacast1 (Jan 28, 2021)

vigole said:


> Create another Firefox profile, and check if you have the same problem with new profile.
> 
> 
> 1. I personally prefer to edit ~/.login_conf. For detailed information, refer to login.conf(5).
> ...


My main computer died on Tuesday so I have a fresh install of FreeBSD on my extra laptop and I'm trying it out here. I'll let you know if something changes. I may strip out my change to /etc/login.conf and only have my ~/.login_conf file edited...time will tell, but so far on my fresh install I am not having this issue and it seems so far it may be because I didn't edit the file in /etc?


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## a6h (Jan 28, 2021)

1. Generally profile is the origin of the large portion of Mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird) problems.
2. Creating new profiles potentially can solve some problems, but it implies loosing all settings.
3. That's why, I regularly backup my profiles Mozilla (Firefox/Thunderbird) in their perfect state.
4. My procedure for changing setting (/etc, ~/*, ...) backup the config file, change it, and test it.


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## stratacast1 (Jan 29, 2021)

Just experienced the problem, not sure why still...does firefox have some log I don't know about? I started a new profile and I'm just going to let it sit and simmer and see what happens.

I just went to inspect the broken UTF8 chars and found something interesting. Inspector still sees the characters just fine!
米津玄師

Even now, copying this into this page works


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## stratacast1 (Jan 29, 2021)

Interesting. So earlier I had UTF8 characters breaking in various pages, and some refreshes solved that issue. However, now it seems to only be in Plex...now I'm wondering if somehow this is a Plex issue

EDIT: Wrong assumption. Coming here, I see the same broken renderings, but it's fine in my clean profile (so far)

EDIT2: Seeing the preview on the FreeBSD forums shows the Japanese characters fine









						Japanese Characters in Anime Show and Episode Names
					

I have all of my Anime organized in folders with both English and Japanese names, e.g. Death Note デスノート, Bleach ブリーチ, or 精霊の守り人 Guardian of the Sacred Spirit. I also use both languages in the file names for the episodes e.g. 01 新生 Rebirth.avi, 01 死神になっちゃった日 A Shinigami is Born!.avi, or 01...




					forums.plex.tv


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## stratacast1 (May 19, 2021)

Mind if I resurrect an older post of mine? Sadly I have to restart Firefox multiple times a day because it stops displaying characters improperly. I think it is specific to Japanese. Is there a particular package I need to have Japanese and Firefox work properly? When rendering of the characters breaks, it doesn't happen anywhere else on my computer...if it helps, I just noticed today that chromimum isn't displaying any Japanese characters


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## Tieks (May 20, 2021)

stratacast1 said:
			
		

> I just went to inspect the broken UTF8 chars and found something interesting. Inspector still sees the characters just fine!  米津玄師



It seems like firefox sees valid utf-8 character codes, but doesn't have a corresponding font sign. Did you properly install all needed fonts, including the japanese? In case of doubt take a look at https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-fonts.


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## stratacast1 (May 20, 2021)

Ahhhh that might be the tipoff to my problem. Let's wait and see what happens. I installed japanese/font-kochi and that resolved the chromium issue..I can only imagine this will resolve the Firefox issue. If this does work, what then baffles me is how it has rendered Japanese this whole time, and yet seems to "forget" after a while of being open


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## stratacast1 (May 20, 2021)

Tieks said:


> It seems like firefox sees valid utf-8 character codes, but doesn't have a corresponding font sign. Did you properly install all needed fonts, including the japanese? In case of doubt take a look at https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-fonts.


What a relief! You pointed me in the right direction. I tried 2 things so sadly I don't know which one was the proper solution, but i think installing that Japanese font fixed my problem


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