Arch Linux User Repository

Hi! I've recently noticed a problem with font rendering in the "Open file" dialog. I'm using Gnome with Wayland.

The "open file" dialog does not show any meaningful characters, only empty spaces or rectangles.

This issue seems to affect GameMaker specifically; other GTK apps render Adwaita Sans correctly.

Here are the logs that seem to be related:

(GameMaker:133674): Pango-WARNING **: 12:23:34.822: failed to create cairo scaled font, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'Adwaita Sans Bold 11'

(GameMaker:133674): Pango-WARNING **: 12:23:34.822: font_face status is: <unknown error status>

(GameMaker:133674): Pango-WARNING **: 12:23:34.822: scaled_font status is: out of memory

(GameMaker:133674): Pango-WARNING **: 12:23:34.823: failed to create cairo scaled font, expect ugly output. the offending font is 'Adwaita Sans Bold 11'

(GameMaker:133674): Pango-WARNING **: 12:23:34.823: font_face status is: <unknown error status>

(GameMaker:133674): Pango-WARNING **: 12:23:34.823: scaled_font status is: out of memory

Adwaita is the default Gnome font family nowadays.

A workaround is switching to another font family, for example

  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name "DejaVu Sans 11"
  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface monospace-font-name "DejaVu Sans Mono 11"

However, it changes the font for every app.

gamemaker-beta-bin version 2024.1400.2.941-1

GNOME Shell 49.2

Is there a fix for font rendering in GameMaker or a workaround to change the fonts specifically for GameMaker?

awesome. thanks for the quick response

downgraded the package for now, ill update it whenever a newer version comes out

Found a workaround, which I've also posted on the github issue. Open /opt/GameMaker-Beta/x86_64/plugins.json and remove each Localisation line except English.

hm, I'd just marked this as out-of-date, but I've updated locally (then checked back and was again shocked at how fast you resolved the flag!) and the latest beta goes into a boot loop complaining about failing to load plugins. May be best to roll back the update until that issue is fixed.

The freetype downgrade is no longer needed. The previous Beta used the system libraries rather than the bundled ones; this has been fixed.

@danielah05 I didn't knew about the FreeType issue, downgrading the freetype2 package using the 2.13.3-3 version from https://archive.archlinux.org fixed the issue. Thank you so much! vlw

GMS2 refuses to start at current version not my problem, this is a known issue that was introduced with the latest version of freetype, programs like inkscape also have crash issues due to this, downgrade freetype to 2.13.3-3 for now until they update freetype to fix this issue

GMS2 refuses to start at current version (2025-09-26) Log:

Starting......
Critical: Doing Validate Folder check... %F macOS=False
**************************************  09/27/2025  **************************************
Logger.Initialise
Skin: /opt/GameMaker-Beta/x86_64/GUI/Skins/Dark
GameMaker, Version=2024.1400.0.901, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
Initialise()
Command line arguments:
%F
ProcessId:31292
SteamAPI Init returned : False
Loading proxy settings
Setting ImageMagick Cache to: /home/ayanami/.config/GameMakerStudio2-Beta/Cache
Discovered system fonts via kernel in 0ms
Initialise(0.0)
CompilerManager - Initialise
File exception 'Could not find a part of the path '/opt/GameMaker-Beta/x86_64/user_cache_directory/Styles'.'
Layout Manager: Attempting to register 'YoYoStudio.User.OperaGxEnvironments.UI.EnvironmentRadioGroup' from assembly 'IDE'. The gadget name 'EnvironmentRadioGroup' is already in use, this may be caused by conflicting plugins
Layout Manager: Attempting to register 'YoYoStudio.GUI.Gadgets.Inspector.MultiSelectListBox+ItemGadget' from assembly 'IDE'. The gadget name 'ItemGadget' is already in use, this may be caused by conflicting plugins
Initialise(0.1)
Prefs: Error loading ${system_directory}/org_settings.json
Prefs: file not found
Prefs: Error loading ${system_directory}/machine_settings.json
Prefs: file not found
Prefs: Error loading ${system_directory}/language_settings.json
Prefs: file not found
Local Pref - machine.General Settings.Environment.Prev Environment = 0
Local Pref - machine.General Settings.Environment.Prev Path to Environment = 
Local Pref - machine.General Settings.Environment.Prev Environment = 0
Local Pref - machine.General Settings.Environment.Prev Path to Environment = 
Initialise(0.2)
Initialise(1)
Initialise(2)
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u12b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u12n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u14b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u14n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u16b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u16n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u18b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u18n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u20b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u20n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u22b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u22n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u24b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u24n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u28b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u28n.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u32b.otb
Font that isn't scalable is invalid: /usr/share/fonts/misc/ter-u32n.otb
Discovered system fonts via filesystem in 349ms
Discovered 759 fonts in 351ms.
Using 0mb in font ram cache
free(): invalid pointer
[createdump] Gathering state for process 31292 GameMakerStudio
[createdump] Crashing thread 7a3c signal 6 (0006)
[createdump] Writing minidump to file /home/ayanami/.local/share/GameMakerDumps/gmdump.31292.dmp
[createdump] Written 33619968 bytes (8208 pages) to core file
[createdump] Target process is alive
[createdump] Dump successfully written in 2678ms
zsh: IOT instruction (core dumped)  /opt/GameMaker-Beta/GameMaker %F

Sadly this doesn't work anymore - aborts on starting. Worked a few weeks ago, not sure what's changed. Couldn't see anything useful in the terminal, just complained of not finding some settings and a font, but that didn't seem to be what caused it to crash.