Firefox is replacing icons with strange symbols
It started about a week or two ago. I noticed that some icons are being replaced by strange symbols (see screenshot for one example). Pale Moon, IceCat, Waterfox, and Opera do not have this problem. I thought it might be a corrupted system or drive, so I wiped the SSD and reinstalled Linux Mint Cinnamon, but the problem still exists. As you can see by the icons, I have uBlock Origin, HTTPS Everywhere, and Bitdefender Traffic Light installed, but they were working fine before (I disabled all of them, but the problem remained). I would appreciate some hints on how to eliminate this problem.
If it matters, hardware is an HP ProBook with Intel Ivy Bridge processor.
Chosen solution
Maybe the setting mentioned in this section:
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-remote-fonts
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Some sites use a custom web font to provide their icons instead of using image files. When Firefox can't find a particular character in a font file, it displays the unicode value (usually 4 characters, sometimes 6) in a box just like that.
If Firefox isn't using downloadable fonts, there are a few different possible explanations. The first thing to check is this, on the Preferences page:
- Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
- Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
- Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
- Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it
In the search box at the top of the page, type font and Firefox should filter to the "Fonts & Colors" button, where you can click the "Advanced" button.
Make sure you have a check mark for "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above"
If you changed that, then try reloading the problem page to see whether you get the icons.
I would never change that setting because I can just imagine the strange results I'd see. No, I think it has something to do with trackers, blocked ads, or something along those lines.
I disabled uBlock Origin and the proper icons returned. I'm going to have to play with the options to see what's going on.
Chosen Solution
Maybe the setting mentioned in this section:
https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Per-site-switches#no-remote-fonts
It's the two uBlock Origin settings: "Block remote fonts" and "Block larger than X" (it's probably the former). As soon as I disabled them, the problem went away.
Thanks to jscher2000, as he hit the nail on the head with remote fonts.