Groups > linux.debian.bugs.dist > #1278424

Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit()

From	Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.bugs.dist
Subject	Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit()
Date	2026-01-15 04:10 +0100
Message-ID	<MdlUd-aDci-3@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
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Control: reassign -1 libxm4 2.3.8-5
Control: retitle -1 libxm4: missing call to FcInit() when using Fontconfig
Control: severity -1 important
Control: affects -1 xpdf

Summary: Before some use of Fontconfig, Motif needs to call FcInit().
This has always been required, but without any consequence until now.
With libfontconfig1 2.17.1-3, which is now in unstable, one gets a
warning on stderr. It is bad for a library to send debug messages to
stderr, but... This just announces more important changes in future
versions of Fontconfig, which would mean a breakage in case of such
a missing call to FcInit(). So this bug must be fixed ASAP.

On 2026-01-14 14:11:11 +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Hi Adam,
> 
> On 2026-01-14 12:43:48 +0000, Adam Sampson wrote:
> > It's not a bug in xpopple as we don't use fontconfig directly there;
> > it'll be indirect through Poppler and Motif.
> 
> There are other PDF viewers that are based on Poppler and such
> a warning is not output. Perhaps FcInit is called in Poppler
> and the xpdf issue comes from Motif (since it comes first).

I've added an abort() after the warning in Fontconfig, and I confirm
that this is obtained via Motif. I've attached the backtrace.

This happens via the ValidateAndLoadFont call:

[...]
#6  0x00007f172b316b89 in FcObjectFromName (name=name@entry=0x7f172b051b24 "encoding") at ./src/fcname.c:110
No locals.
#7  0x00007f172b319888 in IA__FcPatternAddString (p=0x55bb07356dc0, object=object@entry=0x7f172b051b24 "encoding", s=0x55bb0731f41
0 "iso10646-1") at ./src/fcpat.c:825
No locals.
#8  0x00007f172afa4b23 in ValidateAndLoadFont (rend=rend@entry=0x55bb07356d50, display=<optimized out>, display@entry=0x55bb07308550) at ./lib/Xm/XmRenderT.c:2107
[...]

and this function is defined in "lib/Xm/XmRenderT.c", and if
I understand corretly, this is "case XmFONT_IS_XFT:".

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Thread

Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2026-01-14 13:20 +0100
  Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> - 2026-01-14 13:50 +0100
    Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2026-01-14 14:20 +0100
      Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2026-01-14 14:20 +0100
      Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2026-01-15 04:10 +0100
        Bug#1125474: libxm4: missing call to FcInit() when using Fontconfig Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2026-01-15 11:00 +0100
        Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Graham Inggs <ginggs@debian.org> - 2026-01-15 11:20 +0100
          Bug#1125474: xpdf: Fontconfig warning: using without calling FcInit() Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2026-01-15 11:50 +0100

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