zed Unable to Display Host Fonts When Running in Flatpak Sandbox

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[X] Completed

Describe the bug / provide steps to reproduce it

Despite fc-list showing that host fonts such as Noto Sans CJK SC are available within the Flatpak sandbox, Zed is unable to display these fonts, resulting in tofu characters.

$ fc-list
...
/run/host/fonts/opentype/noto/NotoSansCJK-Regular.ttc: Noto Sans CJK SC:style=Regular
...

Screenshot

Steps to Reproduce

Install Zed from Flathub.
Disable Flatpak sandbox escape using flatpak override --user dev.zed.Zed --env=ZED_FLATPAK_NO_ESCAPE=1.
Launch the application and input CJK characters or emojis.

Environment

Zed: v0.159.5 (Zed) OS: Linux Wayland org.freedesktop.platform 24.08 Memory: 11.4 GiB Architecture: x86_64 GPU: Intel(R) Graphics (ADL-N) || Intel open-source Mesa driver || Mesa 24.2.5 (git-3b9fcb7e4d)

If applicable, add mockups / screenshots to help explain present your vision of the feature

No response

If applicable, attach your Zed.log file to this issue.

No response

Oct 31 '24 13:10 NN708

This issue may have been fixed in the upstream repository via https://github.com/servo/font-kit/pull/256. Could you please update this module to include those changes and test it?

Nov 14 '24 17:11 NN708

Hi there! 👋 We're working to clean up our issue tracker by closing older issues that might not be relevant anymore. If you are able to reproduce this issue in the latest version of Zed, please let us know by commenting on this issue, and we will keep it open. If you can't reproduce it, feel free to close the issue yourself. Otherwise, we'll close it in 7 days. Thanks for your help!

Mar 18 '25 15:03 github-actions[bot]

It's still valid and may be related to https://github.com/Riey/fontconfig-parser/pull/11.

Mar 18 '25 16:03 NN708

@ConradIrwin or @osiewicz please can you apply the patch to be able to use user fonts in flatpak?

May 09 '25 02:05 tomaswarynyca

Which patch?

In general I don't recommend running Zed inside a sandbox, but probably happy to merge a PR if you have one.

I'm curious if this is something just needed for https://github.com/flathub/dev.zed.Zed-Preview, or if https://github.com/flathub/dev.zed.Zed has the same issue?

May 09 '25 20:05 ConradIrwin

Zed uses the servo/font-kit library and they made a patch to fix the path where flatpak exports fonts. https://github.com/servo/font-kit/pull/256 A PR was created to sync with the zed-industries/font-kit repo but I see it has been closed. https://github.com/zed-industries/font-kit/pull/4

dev.zed.Zed & dev.zed.Zed-Preview have the same problem.

May 09 '25 20:05 tomaswarynyca

A few hours ago I made a PR to sync zed-industries/font-kit with servo/font-kit

May 13 '25 16:05 tomaswarynyca

Thanks! I merged that and sent a PR to Zed here: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/30687 Are you able to verify that this change works?

May 14 '25 11:05 ConradIrwin

To test it I need a zed-linux-x86_64.tar.gz with the build, can you merge it and send it as cherry-pick to v0.187.x? So when the next preview comes out I can test it 😃

May 14 '25 17:05 tomaswarynyca

@tomaswarynyca There are already some release artifacts in the linked PR (due to the run-bundling label), you can find your release here: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/actions/runs/15029158835/artifacts/3125869723 (see https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/actions/runs/15029158835/job/42245998890 for the associated run)

May 15 '25 00:05 MrSubidubi

Thanks for the help in obtaining the .tar.gz - I did some tests and this doesn't solve the problem, font-kit cannot read the fonts in ~/.local/share/fonts when ZED_FLATPAK_NO_ESCAPE=1

The only way to get reading working was to put the fonts in ~/.fonts

I don't have much idea about Rust, is the way of concatenating paths ok? I am grateful for any ideas you may have on this problem. https://github.com/servo/font-kit/blob/30dae22490c4a44ed35c5cff236ce374c1fecf9f/src/sources/fs.rs#L220

May 15 '25 21:05 tomaswarynyca

I also just tested this, and it does not work

May 15 '25 21:05 vixalien

It seems some of the fonts are in /run/host/fonts.

You can check all discovered fonts with:

$ flatpak run --command=sh --env=ZED_FLATPAK_NO_ESCAPE=1 dev.zed.Zed
[📦 dev.zed.Zed flathub]$ fc-list

For completeness sake, here are the files I used to build the flatpak.

Details

dev.zed.Zed-dev.yaml:

# dev.zed.Zed-Preview.yaml
app-id: dev.zed.Zed-dev
runtime: org.freedesktop.Sdk
runtime-version: "24.08"
sdk: org.freedesktop.Sdk
command: zed-wrapper
separate-locales: false
finish-args:
  - --device=dri
  - --filesystem=home
  - --share=ipc
  - --share=network
  - --socket=fallback-x11
  - --socket=pulseaudio
  - --socket=wayland

  # Enable access to Flatpak host commands (Needs linter exception: https://docs.flathub.org/docs/for-app-authors/linter#exceptions)
  - --talk-name=org.freedesktop.Flatpak

  # Enable access to Freedesktop Secret Service & related auth services since Zed uses Git heavily
  - --talk-name=org.freedesktop.secrets
  - --socket=ssh-auth
  - --socket=gpg-agent

  # Prevent Zed from escaping the sandbox by default
  - --env=ZED_FLATPAK_NO_ESCAPE=1

modules:
  - shared-modules/libsecret/libsecret.json

  - name: gcr
    buildsystem: meson
    cleanup:
      - /include
      - /lib/debug
      - /lib/girepository-1.0
      - /lib/pkgconfig
      - /man
      - /share/gir-1.0
      - /share/doc
      - /share/gtk-doc
      - /share/info
      - /share/man
      - /share/pkgconfig
      - "*.a"
      - "*.la"
    config-opts:
      - -Dgtk_doc=false
      - -Dintrospection=false
    sources:
      - type: archive
        sha256: bad10f3c553a0e1854649ab59c5b2434da22ca1a54ae6138f1f53961567e1ab7
        url: https://download.gnome.org/sources/gcr/3.41/gcr-3.41.2.tar.xz

  - name: libmd
    buildsystem: autotools
    sources:
      - type: archive
        url: https://libbsd.freedesktop.org/releases/libmd-1.1.0.tar.xz
        sha256: 1bd6aa42275313af3141c7cf2e5b964e8b1fd488025caf2f971f43b00776b332
        x-checker-data:
          type: anitya
          project-id: 15525
          stable-only: true
          url-template: https://libbsd.freedesktop.org/releases/libmd-$version.tar.xz
    cleanup:
      - /lib/pkgconfig
      - /share/man

  - name: libbsd
    buildsystem: autotools
    sources:
      - type: archive
        url: https://libbsd.freedesktop.org/releases/libbsd-0.12.2.tar.xz
        sha256: b88cc9163d0c652aaf39a99991d974ddba1c3a9711db8f1b5838af2a14731014
        x-checker-data:
          type: anitya
          project-id: 1567
          stable-only: true
          url-template: https://libbsd.freedesktop.org/releases/libbsd-$version.tar.xz
    cleanup:
      - /lib/pkgconfig
      - /share/man

  - name: netcat
    buildsystem: simple
    build-commands:
      - |
        while read patch; do
          echo "Applying $patch..."
          patch -Np1 -i "debian/patches/$patch"
        done < debian/patches/series
      - make CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -I/usr/include/libbsd" LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -lbsd"
      - install -Dm0755 nc /app/bin/nc
    sources:
      - type: archive
        url: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/netcat-openbsd/-/archive/debian/1.229-1/netcat-openbsd-debian-1.229-1.tar.gz
        sha256: 4984c52882affcc638678a887964f7ab1d21901a2c5c37a38363138370d4dbda
        x-checker-data:
          type: json
          url: https://salsa.debian.org/api/v4/projects/20760/repository/tags
          version-query:
            map(select(.name | startswith("debian/"))) | first | .name
            | split("debian/") | .[1]
          url-query:
            '"https://salsa.debian.org/debian/netcat-openbsd/-/archive/debian/"
            + $version + "/netcat-openbsd-debian-" + $version + ".tar.gz"'

  - name: zed-dev
    buildsystem: simple
    build-commands:
      - install -Dm 755 bin/* --target-directory ${FLATPAK_DEST}/bin
      - install -Dm 755 lib/* --target-directory ${FLATPAK_DEST}/lib
      - install -Dm 755 libexec/* --target-directory ${FLATPAK_DEST}/libexec
      - install -Dm 644 share/applications/* --target-directory ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/applications
      - install -Dm 644 ${FLATPAK_ID}.metainfo.xml --target-directory ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/metainfo
      - install -Dm 644 share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/zed.png ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/zed-preview.png
      - install -Dm 644 share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/zed.png ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/zed-dev.png

      # Rename instances of `zed` to `${FLATPAK_ID}`
      - rename zed-preview ${FLATPAK_ID} ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/{applications/*,icons/hicolor/*/apps/*}
      - rename zed-dev ${FLATPAK_ID} ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/{applications/*,icons/hicolor/*/apps/*}

      # Ensure zed-wrapper is used as the Exec command in the `.desktop` file
      - desktop-file-edit --set-key="Exec" --set-value="zed-wrapper %U" ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/applications/${FLATPAK_ID}.desktop
      # Modify original `.desktop` file to use the correct icon name
      - desktop-file-edit --set-icon="${FLATPAK_ID}" ${FLATPAK_DEST}/share/applications/${FLATPAK_ID}.desktop
    sources:
      - type: archive
        url: file:///home/mona/Downloads/zed-36fdaed7f14c039b9ee46c199a3b31ef9fa66a8d-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz/zed-1192ec3-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
        sha256: fbaa044607948beef703a110e51b792e2b882b02c649a56b3c27a395d928c2a7
        only-arches:
          - x86_64
        x-checker-data:
          type: json
          url: https://api.github.com/repos/zed-industries/zed/releases
          version-query: map(select(.prerelease)) | first | .tag_name
          url-query:
            map(select(.prerelease)) | first | .assets[] | select(.name=="zed-linux-x86_64.tar.gz")
            | .browser_download_url
          is-main-source: true
      - type: archive
        url: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/releases/download/v0.187.2-pre/zed-linux-aarch64.tar.gz
        sha256: f1a3560364715d8e70c39ff0f125bc2126f5a2957e17e474d32a48b994e309e6
        only-arches:
          - aarch64
        x-checker-data:
          type: json
          url: https://api.github.com/repos/zed-industries/zed/releases
          version-query: map(select(.prerelease)) | first | .tag_name
          url-query:
            map(select(.prerelease)) | first | .assets[] | select(.name=="zed-linux-aarch64.tar.gz")
            | .browser_download_url
          is-main-source: true
      - type: file
        path: dev.zed.Zed-dev.metainfo.xml

  - name: host-spawn
    buildsystem: simple
    build-commands:
      - install -Dm755 host-spawn /app/bin/host-spawn
    sources:
      - type: file
        url: https://github.com/1player/host-spawn/releases/download/v1.6.1/host-spawn-x86_64
        sha256: 733746ab498e07d065cbecf80bacd447eb21846d1462e8fe23fdd9d9dc977b50
        dest-filename: host-spawn
        only-arches: [x86_64]
        x-checker-data:
          type: json
          url: https://api.github.com/repos/1player/host-spawn/releases/latest
          tag-query: .tag_name
          version-query: .tag_name
          timestamp-query: .published_at
          url-query: '[.assets[] | select(.name|test(".+x86_64$"))][0] | .browser_download_url'
      - type: file
        url: https://github.com/1player/host-spawn/releases/download/v1.6.1/host-spawn-aarch64
        sha256: 71b7744a4d0b29279523cc0f0ed1a7af5e9555510bd9e6d4685391b59faefaac
        dest-filename: host-spawn
        only-arches: [aarch64]
        x-checker-data:
          type: json
          url: https://api.github.com/repos/1player/host-spawn/releases/latest
          tag-query: .tag_name
          version-query: .tag_name
          timestamp-query: .published_at
          url-query: '[.assets[] | select(.name|test(".+aarch64$"))][0] | .browser_download_url'

  - name: zed-wrapper
    buildsystem: meson
    config-opts:
      - -Deditor_binary=/app/bin/zed
      - -Deditor_title=Zed
      - -Dprogram_name=zed-wrapper
      - -Dfirst_run_template=README.md
      - -Dsdk_update_template=sdk_update.md
      - -Dflagfile_prefix=flatpak-zed
      - -Ddefault_loglevel=0
    sources:
      - type: git
        commit: 3314b55ccd4ece8810715787e246f8407e20caab
        url: https://github.com/flathub-infra/ide-flatpak-wrapper
      - type: file
        path: README.md
      - type: file
        path: sdk_update.md

dev.zed.Zed-dev.metainfo.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<component type="desktop-application">
  <id>dev.zed.Zed-dev</id>
  <name>Zed dev</name>
  <summary>High-performance code editor</summary>
  <developer id="dev.zed">
    <name translate="no">Zed Industries, Inc.</name>
  </developer>
  <description>
    <p>
      *NOTE*: This is the official release of Zed, packaged into a Flatpak by the community. This repackaging is not yet supported by Zed Industries, Inc.
    </p>
    <p>
      Productive coding starts with a tool that stays out of your way. Zed blends the power of an IDE with the speed of a lightweight editor for productivity you can feel under your fingertips.
    </p>
    <p>Features:</p>
    <ul>
      <li>Performance: Efficiently uses every CPU core and your GPU for instant startup, quick file loading, and responsive keystrokes.</li>
      <li>Language-aware: Maintains a syntax tree for precise highlighting, and auto-indent, with LSP support for autocompletion and refactoring.</li>
      <li>Collaboration: Real-time editing and navigation for multiple developers in a shared workspace.</li>
      <li>AI Integration: Integrates GitHub Copilot and GPT-4 for natural language code generation.</li>
    </ul>
  </description>
  <launchable type="desktop-id">dev.zed.Zed-dev.desktop</launchable>
    <recommends>
      <control>pointing</control>
      <control>keyboard</control>
      <display_length compare="ge">768</display_length>
    </recommends>
  <screenshots>
    <screenshot type="default">
      <caption>Zed with a large project open, showing language server and gitblame support</caption>
      <image>https://zed.dev/img/flatpak/flatpak-1.png</image>
    </screenshot>
    <screenshot>
      <caption>Zed with a file open and a channel message thread in the right sidebar</caption>
      <image>https://zed.dev/img/flatpak/flatpak-2.png</image>
    </screenshot>
    <screenshot>
      <caption>Example of a channel's shared document</caption>
      <image>https://zed.dev/img/flatpak/flatpak-3.png</image>
    </screenshot>
    <screenshot>
      <caption>Zed's extension list</caption>
      <image>https://zed.dev/img/flatpak/flatpak-4.png</image>
    </screenshot>
    <screenshot>
      <caption>Theme switcher UI and example theme</caption>
      <image>https://zed.dev/img/flatpak/flatpak-5.png</image>
    </screenshot>
  </screenshots>
  <categories>
    <category>Development</category>
    <category>Utility</category>
  </categories>
  <developer_name>Zed Industries, Inc.</developer_name>
  <url type="homepage">https://zed.dev</url>
  <url type="bugtracker">https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues</url>
  <url type="faq">https://zed.dev/faq</url>
  <url type="help">https://zed.dev/docs/getting-started</url>
  <url type="contact">https://zed.dev/community-links#support-and-feedback</url>
  <url type="vcs-browser">https://github.com/zed-industries/zed</url>
  <url type="contribute">https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md</url>
  <project_group>Zed</project_group>
  <releases>
    <release version="v0.187.2-pre" date="2025-05-15">
      <description></description>
    </release>
    <release version="v0.186.0-pre" date="2025-05-07">
      <description/>
    </release>
    <release version="v0.185.4-pre" date="2025-05-02">
      <description/>
    </release>
    <release version="v0.185.2-pre" date="2025-05-01">
      <description/>
    </release>
    <release version="v0.185.1-pre" date="2025-05-01">
      <description/>
    </release>
    <release version="v0.184.4-pre" date="2025-04-25">
      <description/>
    </release>
  </releases>
  <metadata_license>MIT</metadata_license>
  <project_license>AGPL-3.0-or-later and Apache-2.0 and GPL-3.0-or-later</project_license>
  <content_rating type="oars-1.1">
    <content_attribute id="social-chat">intense</content_attribute>
    <content_attribute id="social-audio">intense</content_attribute>
  </content_rating>
</component>

May 15 '25 21:05 vixalien

@tomaswarynyca The code looks ok. Does the flatpak sandbox allow access to ~/.local/share/fonts?

If not, is it permitted to add more permissions to the manifest to make this work?

May 16 '25 20:05 ConradIrwin

I add to flatpak the exact directory in filesystems permissions

➜  ~ flatpak override --user --filesystem=~/.local/share/fonts dev.zed.Zed-Preview

Accessing via sh I can see the fonts, but Zed can't load them

➜  ~ flatpak run --command=sh --env=ZED_FLATPAK_NO_ESCAPE=1 dev.zed.Zed-Preview
[📦 dev.zed.Zed-Preview ~]$ ls ~/.local/share/fonts
 CascadiaCode-BoldItalic.otf	     CascadiaCode-LightItalic.otf      CascadiaCode-SemiLightItalic.otf  'FS Nokio Medium.otf'		       JetBrainsMono-Italic.ttf
 CascadiaCode-Bold.otf		     CascadiaCode-Light.otf	       CascadiaCode-SemiLight.otf	  JetBrainsMono-Bold-Italic.ttf        JetBrainsMono-Medium-Italic.ttf
 CascadiaCode-ExtraLightItalic.otf   CascadiaCode-Regular.otf	      'FS Nokio Bold.otf'		  JetBrainsMono-Bold.ttf	       JetBrainsMono-Medium.ttf
 CascadiaCode-ExtraLight.otf	     CascadiaCode-SemiBoldItalic.otf  'FS Nokio ExtraLight.otf'		  JetBrainsMono-ExtraBold-Italic.ttf   JetBrainsMono-Regular.ttf
 CascadiaCode-Italic.otf	     CascadiaCode-SemiBold.otf	      'FS Nokio Light.otf'		  JetBrainsMono-ExtraBold.ttf

➜  ~ flatpak info --show-permissions dev.zed.Zed-Preview                                           
[Context]
filesystems=home;~/.local/share/fonts;

// Zed settings
{ 
  "ui_font_family": "Cascadia Code", // Value is not accepted.
  "buffer_font_family": "Cascadia Code" // Value is not accepted.
}

With default config of flatpak package I can also see the fonts in ~/.local/share/fonts directory

➜  ~ flatpak info --show-permissions dev.zed.Zed-Preview
[Context]
filesystems=home;

➜  ~ flatpak run --command=sh --env=ZED_FLATPAK_NO_ESCAPE=1 dev.zed.Zed-Preview
[📦 dev.zed.Zed-Preview ~]$ ls ~/.local/share/fonts
 CascadiaCode-BoldItalic.otf	     CascadiaCode-LightItalic.otf      CascadiaCode-SemiLightItalic.otf  'FS Nokio Medium.otf'		       JetBrainsMono-Italic.ttf
 CascadiaCode-Bold.otf		     CascadiaCode-Light.otf	       CascadiaCode-SemiLight.otf	  JetBrainsMono-Bold-Italic.ttf        JetBrainsMono-Medium-Italic.ttf
 CascadiaCode-ExtraLightItalic.otf   CascadiaCode-Regular.otf	      'FS Nokio Bold.otf'		  JetBrainsMono-Bold.ttf	       JetBrainsMono-Medium.ttf
 CascadiaCode-ExtraLight.otf	     CascadiaCode-SemiBoldItalic.otf  'FS Nokio ExtraLight.otf'		  JetBrainsMono-ExtraBold-Italic.ttf   JetBrainsMono-Regular.ttf
 CascadiaCode-Italic.otf	     CascadiaCode-SemiBold.otf	      'FS Nokio Light.otf'		  JetBrainsMono-ExtraBold.ttf

May 16 '25 21:05 tomaswarynyca

Apologies for the late reply! I looked into this further and realized that Zed actually uses cosmic-text on Linux, not font-kit. Here's what I found:

The issue might be related to fontdb, which cosmic-text relies on. There's a possibly related issue https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-text/issues/379, which was resolved by updating fontdb. While this doesn't directly mention Flatpak, it might be worth checking whether updating fontdb could help.
Another potential culprit is the upstream fontconfig-parser. A recent fix https://github.com/Riey/fontconfig-parser/pull/11 was merged just a few days ago. Updating the fontconfig-parser version might resolve the problem.

May 17 '25 11:05 NN708

@ConradIrwin can update in the PR fontconfig-parser to be version 0.5.8 in Cargo.lock?

May 20 '25 09:05 tomaswarynyca

ping @ConradIrwin

May 27 '25 17:05 tomaswarynyca

Updated https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/pull/30687 with latest main and the new fontconfig-parser.

Sorry for the delay, was out of the office for the last fortnight.

Jun 02 '25 19:06 ConradIrwin

Thanks, @ConradIrwin! Unfortunately, it's still not working in my test. Maybe we'll need to wait for cosmic-text to release a new version?

Jun 05 '25 09:06 NN708

Blergh. Not sure either...

Jun 05 '25 22:06 ConradIrwin

I just updated the Zed flatpak, and it seems to correctly use my system terminal font.

I didn't change anything though, and I still can't find the font while I try editing buffer_font_family

Aug 28 '25 10:08 vixalien

I just updated the Zed flatpak, and it seems to correctly use my system terminal font.

I have also upgraded to version 0.201.5, and the issue persists. Of course, if you disable the sandbox (which is the default), you can use system fonts.

Aug 28 '25 12:08 NN708

Hi - maybe we need a new release of cosmic-text, I ask for it a few hours ago https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-text/pull/383?notification_referrer_id=NT_kwDOAnqTy7QxNTk2NTAwMDQ2OTo0MTU4NzY1OQ#issuecomment-3233568784

Aug 28 '25 16:08 tomaswarynyca

A new version of cosmic-text (v0.15.0) has been released. Could we try upgrading to see if it resolves the problem?

Oct 31 '25 03:10 NN708

Gentle ping @ConradIrwin

Nov 03 '25 17:11 NN708

@NN708 are you able to send a PR?

Nov 03 '25 19:11 ConradIrwin

@ConradIrwin Possibly, but I do have a concern about the CLA requirement.

Nov 04 '25 01:11 NN708

This has been resolved. I'm closing the issue.

Nov 11 '25 03:11 NN708