Changing the selected frame 'default face size with "-" results in a tab bar with a lot of vertical space padding, It also doesn't redisplay it properly with redrawing if you move the mouse over the tab bar, or if you switch tabs. As far as I can tell for the life of the frame. This, I believe, is new since 28.x. I see it with `emacs -q`. e.g.: (tab-bar-mode) (set-frame-parameter (selected-frame) 'font (format "%s-18" (face-attribute 'default :family))) Thanks! In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.20, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2022-11-14 built on jf-laptop Repository revision: 723ceaca1d71850aed75431a503f8616cab8c103 Repository branch: master Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12013000 System Description: Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS Configured using: 'configure --with-native-compilation' Configured features: ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM XINPUT2 XPM GTK3 ZLIB Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Lisp Interaction Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t eldoc-mode: t show-paren-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t tab-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t line-number-mode: t indent-tabs-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util text-property-search mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils time-date cl-loaddefs comp comp-cstr warnings icons subr-x rx cl-seq cl-macs gv cl-extra help-mode bytecomp byte-compile cl-lib rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit xinput2 x multi-tty make-network-process native-compile emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 80043 7606) (symbols 48 7263 0) (strings 32 20000 1793) (string-bytes 1 624836) (vectors 16 15858) (vector-slots 8 330827 12698) (floats 8 39 43) (intervals 56 449 138) (buffers 984 13))