fc-match says that 'helvetica' is getting mapping to an old X11 font:

$ fc-match -v helvetica
...
	file: "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/helvR08-ISO8859-1.pcf.gz"(w)

Isn't it about time that we just deleted any code path using old X11 fonts when they are not explicitly asked for?

Seeing this as well...

Restoring my sanity/working around it temporarily by mapping Helvetica to Nimbus Sans L in ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<alias binding="same">
  <family>Helvetica</family>
  <prefer>
    <family>Nimbus Sans L</family>
  </prefer>
</alias>
</fontconfig>

IMHO should be fixed in fontconfig.

If we prefer Nimbus Sans L for Helvetica alternatives, it should be fixed in urw-fonts with adding the above config to the package. or adding the following to xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi package:

<fontconfig>
  <selectfont>
    <rejectfont>
      <glob>/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/*.gz</glob>
    </rejectfont>
  </selectfont>
</fontconfig>

if those fonts are totally useless for applications using fontconfig.
Either way, I expect to see the fix in the package other than fontconfig because it avoids frequent updates of fontconfig for non-binary updates and unnecessary updates for those who don't install the problematic font packages.

I'm not sure how much rejecting X11 fonts affects other applications. reassigning to urw-fonts at this point.

i cannot reproduce this issue on my machine with xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi and urw-fonts-2.4-19.fc21 installed.

fc-match -v helvetica
Pattern has 29 elts (size 32)
        family: "Nimbus Sans L"(s)
        style: "Regular"(w)
        slant: 0(i)(s)
        weight: 80(i)(s)
        width: 100(i)(s)
        size: 12(f)(s)
        pixelsize: 12.5(f)(s)
        foundry: "urw"(w)
        hintstyle: 3(i)(s)
        hinting: True(s)
        verticallayout: False(s)
        autohint: False(s)
        globaladvance: True(s)
        file: "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1/n019003l.pfb"(w)
        index: 0(i)(w)
        outline: True(w)
        scalable: True(w)
        dpi: 75(f)(s)
        scale: 1(f)(s)
        charset: 
        0000: 00000000 ffffffff ffffffff 7fffffff 00000000 ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff
        0001: ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff 00040000 00000000 00000000 00000000
        0002: 0f000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 3f0002c0 00000000
        0003: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00100000 10000000 00000000 00000000
        0004: ffffffff ffffffff ffffffff 00000000 fffff000 ffffffff ffff199f 033fffff
        0020: 77180000 06010047 00000010 00000000 00000000 00001000 00000000 00000000
        0021: 00400000 00000004 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
        0022: 46260044 00000000 00000000 00000031 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
        0025: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000400 00000000
        00f6: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 000001f8 00000000
        00fb: 00000006 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
(w)
        lang: aa|ab|af|av|ay|ba|be|bg|bi|br|bs|bua|ca|ce|ch|chm|co|cs|cv|da|de|en|eo|es|et|eu|fi|fj|fo|fr|fur|fy|gd|gl|gv|ho|hr|hu|ia|id|ie|ik|io|is|it|kaa|ki|kk|kl|kum|kv|ky|la|lb|lez|lt|lv|mg|mh|mk|mo|mt|nb|nds|nl|nn|no|nr|nso|ny|oc|om|os|pl|pt|rm|ro|ru|sah|se|sel|sh|sk|sl|sma|smj|smn|so|sq|sr|ss|st|sv|sw|tg|tk|tl|tn|tr|ts|tt|tyv|uk|uz|vo|vot|wa|wen|wo|xh|yap|zu|an|crh|csb|fil|hsb|ht|jv|kj|ku-tr|kwm|lg|li|mn-mn|ms|na|ng|pap-an|pap-aw|rn|rw|sc|sg|sn|su|za(s)
        fontversion: 0(i)(s)
        fontformat: "Type 1"(w)
        embeddedbitmap: True(s)
        decorative: False(s)
        namelang: "de"(s)
        prgname: "fc-match"(s)
        hash: "sha256:cba3127299addab69e12b5ff07955b4c065dd0e631a6736616cd3423aa0be6cd"(w)
        postscriptname: "NimbusSanL-Regu"(w)

could you please give more infos how i can reproduce this issue?

Thanks

I can no longer reproduce this.  Is this still happening for anyone else?

reporter and me cannot reproduce this issue anymore. I decided to close this bug as "WORKSFORME". Feel free to reopen this again if someone can reproduce it.

Thanks