[SOLVED] Cockpit terminal text rendering is unreadable

Support
1

Problem Description
Cockpit terminal text is not rendered properly and is not usable. This is first noticed on FreedomBox 24.14 and has not been an issue in the past.

I’m not able to find an associated error for this.

  • setfont Lat15-Terminus14.psf.gz does not resolve the problem.
  • Changes to Cockpit Terminal font size and color theme do not resolve the problem.
  • Reset from the terminal or from the button in the applet do not resolve the problem.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Log in to FreedomBox
  2. Open the Cockpit app
  3. Select the Terminal applet
  4. Observe unreadable terminal text for the prompt and any command output such as ls -a

Expected Results
I expected a text terminal screen in the Cockpit Terminal applet with readable text.

Actual results
There is text which is not properly rendered and is not readable. I don’t find an associated error in the journal.

Screenshot

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Information

  • FreedomBox version: You are running Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) and FreedomBox version 24.14. FreedomBox is up to date.
  • Hardware: Linux 6.1.0-22-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.94-1 (2024-06-21) x86_64 GNU/Linux
  • How did you install FreedomBox?: Minimal debian net-inst. DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install freedombox -y. FreedomBox was installed years ago.
1 Like
2

I experienced this using Librewolf (Firefox). I usually get this fixed by allowing HTML5 canvas access, when prompted.

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3

I found some guidance on this which was not helpful. If you have a specific method for Firefox I’d be happy to try it.

4

If I recall correctly, LibreWolf would prompt me to allow access. If Firefox isn’t prompting you, I suggest checking the permissions that you have granted Cockpit.

With the Cockpit page open, check the permissions panel. You can find instructions on how to do that in the link below. The permission that might be needed is “Extract canvas data”. Try allowing it and see if it fixes the problem.

You can check and change the permissions for a website here: Site Permissions Panel

1 Like
5

Thanks for the detail. Using Firefox ESR on Debian the site permissions don’t include an html5 canvas permission. Searching the Firefox settings for html5 doesn’t give a result.

Here’s what I see for site permissions. There are no permission changes for my freedombox, so I don’t see the site settings icon near the address bar.

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6

Ok. Maybe try with the “Firefox Page Info window” method. That should list all the permissions.

For example:

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See below:

You can change any other permissions from the Page Info window, which contains a comprehensive Permissions section. To open the Page Info window for a website:

  1. Click the padlock Fx89Padlock in the address bar.
  2. Click the right arrow in the Site Information panel.

Fx89SiteInfoPanel

  1. Click the More Information button in the next panel.

See the Firefox Page Info window article for additional information.

1 Like
7

Thank you for pointing this out, I will try it. Connecting with Chrome from my work computer is fine, so the problem seems to be limited to Firefox ESR in a Debian client.

8

Found it on Firefox ESR. There is a slight improvement but it is still unusable with html5 canvas permission allowed. Progress!

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1 Like
9

I’m happy to report this is working well again in 24.18, but I’m not able to mark the original post as resolved.

1 Like
10

I don’t think the FreedomBox version number is of any relevance here, since there was no change around cockpit. It was likely caused by a change in your browser or in one of its add-ons.