Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:
I ran into a similar issue over the weekend after building emacs from
Git.

I had inherited these lines in .Xresources from way back:
Emacs.FontBackend:	ftcrhb,xft,x
Emacs*font:	-adobe-Utopia-normal-normal-normal-*-*-*-*-*-*-0-iso10646-1

After the update/build, emacs refused to start in GUI mode, -- emacs -nw
worked, and it displayed the font backend error when started as emacs
under X.

I worked around the problem by commenting out the emacs.font line and it
started with Adobe Courier.

This morning, I updated the font backend line as suggested by you, and
now I get over 3,000+ fonts -- and uncommenting the Adobe Utopia line
does not cause the error.

Could we update the News file with  details on what font backends are
now recommended?


>>>>>> On Mon, 20 Jan 2020 14:52:34 +0100, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> said:
>     Robert> If all else fails, can you run 'strace emacs' with your normal config
>     Robert> to see if itʼs loading some site-specific configuration files? Those
>     Robert> might be messing with the font setup.
>
> In fact, looking through Andreas' package repo, I see it includes an
> app-defaults.Emacs that does:
>
>     Emacs.FontBackend:		xft,x
>
> which is going to cause problems on a cairo-enabled build. Is it
> possible for you to remove that setting, or try something like
>
>     Emacs.FontBackend:		ftcrhb,xft,x
>
> or
>
>     Emacs.FontBackend:		ftcrhb,x
>
>
> Robert
>

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