Some glyphs missing after v3.x.x update

[luizkowalski]

🗹 Requirements

• I have searched the issues for my issue and found nothing related and/or helpful
• I have searched the FAQ for help
• I have searched the Wiki for help

🎯 Subject of the issue

Experienced behavior:
this morning I updated some deps on my computers and some fonts were updated as well but this is not a big deal since this has happened before, but after the update finished I noticed some icons on my neovim were wrong like the Gemfile icon and the X for closing a buffer:

This was weird so I decided to delete all custom fonts I had, clean up the cache, re-download them manually, and reinstall it. To my surprise, nothing has changed

No idea what is going on, this is my text configuration on iTerm2:

Neovim version:

:version
NVIM v0.9.0
Build type: Release
LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3

   system vimrc file: "$VIM/sysinit.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/neovim/0.9.0/share/nvim"

No Neovim config has been changed prior to today or after this.

Expected behavior:
X and missing icons should exist

Example symbols:

🔧 Your Setup

• Which font are you using (e.g. Anonymice Powerline Nerd Font Complete.ttf)?
  • Fira Code Nerd Font and Fira Code Nerd Font Mono
• Where did you get the file from (download link, self patched, source downloaded from link...)
  • Homebrew and manually download
• Which terminal emulator are you using (e.g. iterm2, urxvt, gnome, konsole)?
  • iterm2
• Are you using OS X, Linux or Windows? And which specific version or distribution?
  • MacOS

One more screenshot from other missing icons

I guess it should've been the "unknown file" icon

[Finii]

Can you try to copy and paste the missing-icon-characters into a comment as text here? I can determine the codepoints then.

[dbuch]

Right, I can confirm this problem.

Which font are you using (e.g. Anonymice Powerline Nerd Font Complete.ttf)?

Fira Code Nerd Font and Fira Code Nerd Font Mono

Same here.

Are you using OS X, Linux or Windows? And which specific version or distribution?

Linux (Arch linux)

[Finii]

I fear the missing icon are from the dropped Material Design Icons set. But we need the codepoints or the characters copy as text an pasted into a comment to see.

I also use neovim, I have never seen that gui-ish thing, what is the command to activate that?

[luizkowalski]

Couldn't copy but I guess I managed somehow to see some info when right-clicking with the mouse:

This one is the .rbi file, probably "unknown file" icon

This one was the close button:

I have never seen that gui-ish thing, what is the command to activate that?

That would be Telescope with git_files command

[luizkowalski]

Also, noticed that .svg files have this weird icon that looks like something in Arabic?

[Kedap]

I think it's a problem with the icon pack like 'neovim-web-devicons' or packages like that. Something similar happens to me but with cascadia code (original) and also with fira code (Fira Code Nerd Font). In the first case I thought it was just a cascadia code error, so I installed CaskaydiaCove but the problem persists. This all started this morning when I decided to update, which is the same archlinux.

nf-mdi-format_size error render

The deprecated tag seems to indicate something

This is the same with other icons. But something curious is that Caskaydia is installed in kitty and FiraCode in wezterm and with wezterm if I can see the second icon

I think a lot of popular icons are marked as deprecated and therein lies the problem. As far as I see what happens, I will continue to regret updating :(

[luizkowalski]

oh, good find! yeah, the X icon (F655) is obsolete too, which proves your point

[Kedap]

For example:
onsails/lspkind.nvim#64

[luizkowalski]

there is a PR for it already on nvim tree devicons too: nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons#264

[Finii]

Reason

Historically Nerd Fonts patched the Material Design Icons to codepoints F500 - FD46. The problem with part of these codepoints is that they are not 'free to use' (what Unicode calls PUA), but contain glyphs that are needed for some non-english languages.
There are a lot issues raised, and rightfully so. The problem has been discussed at length here:

• [Suggestion] Fix invalid code points for some glyphs #365

Additionally people wanted the Material Design Icons to update. The problem with that was that the number of icons increased considerably; and the MDI themselves moved codepoints to PUA-A. Several solutions have been discussed and what finally has been choosen was this:

• Add New Material Design Icons to its own region #773

Strategy

That moving codepoints would hurt you was clear. On the other hand imagine that someone stole you the capital letter A to put some obscure icon there. To lessen the hurt the new codepoints have been activated with Nerd Fonts v2.3.0 already and hinted that people should migrate to the new codepoints "now" (Compare its release notes):

Some projects did it, some people wrote codepoint converters (unfortunately I did not compile a list, maybe we could do it in this thread). For sure most people did not see the release notes 🙄

To help people the icons have been tagged in the cheat sheet, and there is now a 'database' of the icons [1], and a rough translation list [2].

• Mark old MDI as obsolete on cheat sheet #1097

Finally with the major release the new codepoints (and new icons) are the only codepoints to reach the Material Design Icons:

• Update octicons and drop old MDI #1156

[1] https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/blob/master/glyphnames.json
[2] #1059 (comment) (open the details in this comment)

Edit: Add word 'raised' in 1st paragraph

[Finii]

Also, noticed that .svg files have this weird icon that looks like something in Arabic?

See 'reason' above. That codepoint IS the codepoint for that Arabic glyph. Imagine you want to write something and instead of the expected glyph (equivalent to letter A) you get some weird icon.

Well, I hope you will not be too angry and frustrated, understanding the reason. Nerd Fonts got that unfortunately wrong from the start, and at some point in time we should stick to the standard.

This one is the .rbi file, probably "unknown file" icon

Where does the rbifile come from (which project)? Some plugin? We should raise an issue there.

[Finii]

To help more we could show the replacement codepoint in the cheat sheet. Would that help?

But sometimes the updated MDI looks different (well that is the reason for the MDI update), or has been dropped completely meanwhile.

[luizkowalski]

Where does the rbifile come from (which project)? Some plugin? We should raise an issue there.

Ruby's Sorbet file type. Developers don't really touch this file, it is autogenerated and you are highly encourage to leave like this, that's why, personally, never bothered me the unknown file

[rj1]

i'm experiencing the same/similar issue using the ttf-hack-nerd package on arch linux.

all of a sudden i'm missing a bunch of symbols that worked fine before, a few examples:

{ "", "", "", "", "", "" }

[luizkowalski]

@rj1 if I understand correctly (and Finii can correct me if I'm wrong cause I'm just learning all of this), it is not a Nerd Font's issue. It was announced previously that Material Icons (probably the missing symbols you are seeing) were to be deprecated due to them not being free. if anyone is to blame, is whatever library you are using to render these symbols (e.g. vim's devicons). You should go to their repository and check open issues

[Finii]

it is not a Nerd Font's issue

Well, it kind of is, but is not-a-bug. The symbols needed to change their codepoints.

deprecated due to them not being free

The icons were free and they are still there, but the codepoints were not free, they are needed for non-latin texts. To occupy codepoints that are not free-to-use has been an oversight years ago when non-latin texts were not a consideration.

You should go to their repository and check open issues

Definitively. Or raise an issue there. Link to this thread in your report there.

[Finii]

Collection of helper projects

https://github.com/loichyan/nerdfix
https://gist.github.com/mischw/78e8e42c2ebb1069560a2fc4573b1425
#1059 (comment) (open details)

Big thanks to the respective authors!

[rj1]

thx!

in my case it's just some symbols i've pasted from https://unicodes.jessetane.com/ into my neovim config

@mischw's python script is v helpful & managed to get most of them, but there's still a couple that either don't render or render something completely different than before :(

update: turns out the two symbols are now obsolete for some reason..

Icon 'nf-mdi-square_inc' is marked as obsolete
Icon 'nf-mdi-glassdoor' is marked as obsolete

[rootex-]

I can also confirm the problem:

To compare it with another working font:

[rootex-]

nerdfix utility has helped me to find missing symbols and replace them by hand

[siduck]

hi @Finii is this folder icon removed?

Copy it from site gives me another icon ( cuz the site isnt updated to v3.0 )

But i wasnt able to find it by fontforge too

[saikete]

@saikete

I think replacing characters manually is a lot of work, which is fine when there are few characters, but not a good solution when there are quite a lot of wrong characters

Maybe one of the helpers can be used?

Thank you very much for your suggestion, I will follow a more reasonable way to solve my problem, and at the end I will read the document carefully to complete the operation you said

[wez]

@saikete my comment was directed towards the nerd fonts maintainers, not to you specifically!

[Finii]

@wez

It would be great if you could consider removing i_material.sh if it is no longer an accurate mapping!

Well, it is used for the "removed" icons on the Cheat Sheet. Of course we could put it somewhere else, but...

I'd love it if there was a json blob or similar that held the definitive mapping in a machine readable structure!

Is https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/blob/master/glyphnames.json not suited? That is intended just for what you want to do.

It the moment the i_*.sh are 'the database' of the glyph names. Some of these shell scripts are autogenerated, some were manually tweaked. From that files all other collections of names come. For example the glyphnames file and the cheat sheet, as well as the css files. If that is a good solution? It is just how it grew historically.
But I believe with the json file everyone can work? If we need an expansion in fields or something just tell me.

[Finii]

@wez

there is automation that scrapes the name -> symbol mapping from the various scripts

If you want to stick to that, I would suggest using (i.e. executing) the i_all.sh, as that will not return the removed icons (unless asked to). The information i_all.sh collects can then be automated further, see https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/blob/master/bin/scripts/generate-css.sh as example.

But I guess glyphnames.json is even better for you.

[Finii]

@allcontributors add @loichyan for tool

[allcontributors]

@Finii

This project's configuration file has malformed JSON: .all-contributorsrc. Error:: Unexpected string in JSON at position 35211

[Finii]

@allcontributors add @loichyan for tool

[allcontributors]

@Finii

I've put up a pull request to add @loichyan! 🎉

[cabiamdos]

I have here a patch-solution that I have implemented (https://github.com/cabiamdos/nerd-fonts-fix). Hope it is useful. Basically I have remapped the available theme icons (unicodes) into the ones that are in the fonts provided into the repository.

[jpcercal]

I've been using nerdfonts with zsh + starship + iTerm2, thanks for the great work everyone!

nerdfix managed to solve the problem, I had only one file that had to be patched as it can be seen below.

./nerdfix fix ~/dotfiles/starship.toml:

# Auto fix it using last input '󰇁'
note: Found obsolete icon U+FA1E
    ┌─ /Users/jpcercal/dotfiles/starship.toml:128:12
    │
128 │ format = "[羽](bold cyan)[took $duration](bold cyan) [❯](dimmed white) "
    │            ^^ Icon 'nf-mdi-timer_sand' is marked as obsolete
    │
    = You could replace it with:
          1. 󰔟 U+F051F nf-md-timer_sand
          2. 󱦠 U+F19A0 nf-md-timer_sand_paused
          3. 󰞌 U+F078C nf-md-timer_sand_full
          4. 󰚭 U+F06AD nf-md-timer_sand_empty

> Input an icon: 󰔟
# Your input: 󰔟 nf-md-timer_sand
> Are your sure to write the patched content? all yes

The full file changes after the nerdfix command got executed can be found here:
jpcercal/dotfiles@23898f0

Reference:
https://github.com/loichyan/nerdfix

Thanks!

[Finii]

I guess we can close this issue now. It will still be pinned for some time.