Cannot get emoji fonts to render with Stylix

[ixxie]

Thank you for your work on Stylix! I've been enjoying a pretty NixOS for a couple of weeks now and its wonderful!

I'm running Stylix in a flake-based NixOS system; no matter what I try, I can't get Emojis to properly render: instead of seeing a character, I see a blank space (not tofu). Some emojis do render though.

For some applications (e.g. Discord and Firefox) they reliably show all the time. But for my terminals (Ghostty and Alacritty) I have not been able to get them to work correctly.

The only thing that fixes it is disabling Stylix all together. My configuration:

{ pkgs, ... }:

{

  fonts.packages = with pkgs; [
    source-code-pro
    powerline-fonts
    inter
    google-fonts
    nerd-fonts.monaspace
    noto-fonts-color-emoji
  ];

  stylix = {
    enable = true;
    base16Scheme = "${pkgs.base16-schemes}/share/themes/unikitty-dark.yaml";
    opacity.terminal = 0.8;
    cursor.size = 16;

    fonts = {
      serif = {
        package = pkgs.nerd-fonts.monaspace;
        name = "MonaspiceXe Nerd Font";
      };
      sansSerif = {
        package = pkgs.nerd-fonts.monaspace;
        name = "MonaspiceNe Nerd Font";
      };
      monospace = {
        package = pkgs.nerd-fonts.monaspace;
        name = "MonaspiceKr Nerd Font";
      };
      emoji = {
        package = pkgs.google-fonts; # also tried noto-fonts-color-emoji
        name = "Noto Color Emoji";
      };

      sizes = {
        applications = 11;
        terminal = 11;
        popups = 11;
        desktop = 11;
      };
    };
  };
}

Possibly related:

• stylix: delegate default font declarations #366
• fonts: support fallback fonts #201

[donovanglover]

I was able to reproduce the blank spaces in alacritty (alacritty/alacritty#153) but ghostty showed the single emoji I tested.

As a workaround you could try kitty, which is well known for its emoji support

[trueNAHO]

For some applications (e.g. Discord and Firefox) they reliably show all the time. But for my terminals (Ghostty and Alacritty) I have not been able to get them to work correctly.

We merely propagate the fonts as follows:

• https://github.com/danth/stylix/blob/968f13d47044bdfe07d7a96310e386145900384e/modules/alacritty/hm.nix#L17-L23
• https://github.com/danth/stylix/blob/968f13d47044bdfe07d7a96310e386145900384e/modules/ghostty/hm.nix#L19

Maybe this is an application problem, similar to #814?

[ixxie]

Maybe this is an application problem, similar to #814?

I don't think so; emojis are invisible on LibreOffice Writer too. I also tried Kitty like @donovanglover suggested but had no luck.

I'm not saying its surely Stylix causing it, but it does seem to be a system issue and not application-specific.

[ixxie]

@trueNAHO, after some testing I've discovered this only seems to happen if I also add the google-fonts package to my font.packages. Without it, emoji's render fine.

It should be noted when the issue manifests, it doesn't affect all emojis, but it does affect the majority of them. That is, if you test with only one emoji, there is a chance you get a false negative.

[donovanglover]

Sounds like a font priorities issue. Shouldn't be stylix related. Try changing the fallback order and/or use logging from affected programs to find the offending font(s)

[ixxie]

@donovanglover I didn't configure any font fallback priorities; all I did was install some fonts to the system.

In the absence of my own configuration overriding these settings, it seems quite confusing that Stylix would accept configuration options for these fonts and then not ensure their priority is set correctly.

[trueNAHO]

In the absence of my own configuration overriding these settings, it seems quite confusing that Stylix would accept configuration options for these fonts and then not ensure their priority is set correctly.

As previously mentioned, Stylix currently merely propagates the fonts without much further processing. As donovanglover mentioned, this might be a general font issue that may be out of the scope of Stylix.

For example, you might be able to further debug this with something like:

fc-match emoji

[ixxie]

Sorry if I was rude or entitled, I'm just a bit confused.

Running fc-match emoji yields the follow, both with and without the google-fonts package installed:

❯ fc-match emoji
NotoColorEmoji.ttf: "Noto Color Emoji" "Regular"

I think what is confusing me is that I don't understand how font priority is set; as I mentioned, the settings exposed made me assume that priority would be managed.

I'd be happy to open a PR to clarify the documentation once I understand things better!

[trueNAHO]

Sorry if I was rude or entitled, I'm just a bit confused.

No worries.

I think what is confusing me is that I don't understand how font priority is set; as I mentioned, the settings exposed made me assume that priority would be managed.

I'd be happy to open a PR to clarify the documentation once I understand things better!

If this is not a Stylix issue, the best the documentation could do is something like:

NOTE: Some fonts may sometimes not work in some applications.

Adding such a notice is probably more harmful and confusing than anything else.

I am just blindly going to assume that this is an issue with individual applications, which is clearly out of the scope of Stylix.

Sorry if I sounded rude or harsh this time :)

[ixxie]

I am not saying the issue is caused by Stylix, but if the issue is caused by individual applications, then why would it occur for multiple different apps (Ghostty, Alacritty, LibreOffice Writer) in the same way when the package is added?