Bug 1584934 - gv does not display PostScript files
Summary: gv does not display PostScript files
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: gv
Version: 28
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jason Tibbitts
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2018-06-01 00:55 UTC by Arnold Boothroyd
Modified: 2018-06-23 20:46 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version: gv-3.7.4-16.fc28
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2018-06-23 20:46:41 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
One of the postscript files that I tried to open using gv (30.62 KB, application/postscript)
2018-06-01 00:55 UTC, Arnold Boothroyd
no flags Details

Description Arnold Boothroyd 2018-06-01 00:55:40 UTC
Created attachment 1446493 [details]
One of the postscript files that I tried to open using gv

Description of problem:

gv hangs (in a sense) when invoked to display a PostScript file.  It opens the usual window with the usual menus.  However, if one tries to open a PostScript file the display of the actual page remains blank, and the mouse cursor continues to display the rotating symbol that should indicate that it is "in progress".  This continues indefinitely (at least for several minutes).  The gv window remains responsive: one can use the menus or close the window with no problems.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gv-3.7.4-15.fc28.x86_64

How reproducible:
Completely, as far as I can tell; I have tried it with several PostScript files (created by gnuplot or by LaTeX), always with the same results.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. use gv to open a PostScript file.
2.
3.

Actual results:
display of page remains blank, mouse cursor indicates "in progress" indefinitely though gv remains otherwise responsive

Expected results:
page should display

Additional info:
I had recently installed Fedora 28 MATE-COMPIZ spin (replacing rather than upgrading Fedora 26).  I created a file  weight3.ps  using gnuplot, and attempted to view it via the command line, which yielded 5 error messages and the above "hang" problem:

> gv weight3.ps
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-140-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Medium-R-Normal--*-100-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Helvetica-Bold-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-P-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Courier-Medium-R-Normal--*-100-*-*-M-*-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct

(Note that in Fedora 26, the first four of the above error messages had appeared but the page had displayed correctly, so I had ignored them.)

I installed  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi  &  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi and the above error messages no longer appeared when invoking gv via the command line, but the "hang" problem (page not displaying) remained the same.

(Note that using ps2pdf on the PostScript file produces a PDF file that displays correctly using the atril PDF viewer.)

Opening gv via the "Applications" menu (rather than the command line) yielded the same problem when trying to actually open a PostScript file.

Attempting to view several older PostScript files (that had been created via LaTeX) had the same problem.

For completeness, I attach one of the PostScript files that I tried to view.

Comment 1 Arnold Boothroyd 2018-06-10 06:08:51 UTC
Reproducibility:  gv exhibits the same bug on a second computer where I likewise replaced Fedora 26 with Fedora 28 (MATE-Compiz spin).

Comment 2 Jason Tibbitts 2018-06-14 16:43:21 UTC
I can confirm this, but to me it appears that it is related to a missing package.

I have a standard Fedora install (using kickstart and ansible) which is running on a bunch of desktops.  On that install, I have this problem with gv.

On my desktop, which is running everything in that install plus whatever random extra packages I've installed, I don't have this issue with gv.

The problem, of course, is to figure out which package it is.

Also note that for me, viewing various postscript files, I don't get the above mentioned warnings about converting strings to fontstructs, but I do get exactly one warning (in all cases, whether gv displays the file properly or displays nothing):

Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion

I will now try to diff the package lists and do a binary search to narrow down which difference matters.

Comment 3 Jason Tibbitts 2018-06-14 17:50:56 UTC
Well that was easy.  The missing package is ghostscript-x11.

In F27, ghostscript was just a metpackage that has ghostscript-x11 as a dependency.  In F28, ghostscript is a real package and it does not depend on ghostscript-x11.

It should be completely sufficient to change the dependency in gv from ghostscript to ghostscript-x11.  I'll go ahead and do that and push an update.

Comment 4 Jason Tibbitts 2018-06-14 18:07:12 UTC
Builds are running for rawhide and F28.  An update notice will be added here once the F28 build is finished; please test and give karma in the updates system.

Comment 5 Fedora Update System 2018-06-14 18:22:58 UTC
gv-3.7.4-16.fc28 has been submitted as an update to Fedora 28. https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-373c9f0b2e

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2018-06-15 16:34:39 UTC
gv-3.7.4-16.fc28 has been pushed to the Fedora 28 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for
instructions on how to install test updates.
You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2018-373c9f0b2e

Comment 7 Arnold Boothroyd 2018-06-16 04:50:37 UTC
Problem appears to be solved: thanks very much!

After installing  gv-3.7.4-16.fc28.x86_64  from the testing repository, gv now displays (correctly) the PostScript files I have tried it out on.

(Rendering appeared to be correct even before I also installed
  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi  &  xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-100dpi
to quiet error messages like those mentioned in the original report, so it is unclear whether installation of these fonts was actually necessary.)

Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2018-06-23 20:46:41 UTC
gv-3.7.4-16.fc28 has been pushed to the Fedora 28 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.


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