OTF fonts not working on wayland/arch?

[americanjeff]

Issue Description

I used ghostty to see what fonts it supported and then I configured one that happened to be an OTF. It doesn't give an error but silently uses a different font.

Expected Behavior

Ghostty would either use the font I picked or log an error explaining what went wrong

Actual Behavior

Ghostty silently picked a fallback font

Reproduction Steps

I used ghostty +list-fonts to see what fonts it thought it could use. I picked "Maple Mono" from the list and put it in ghostty config as

font-family = "Maple Mono"

when I run ghostty from another terminal it doesn't give an error but uses a different font "Noto Sans Mono Bold"

I tried this with a bunch of different listed fonts and about half of the fonts I tried didn't work. I looked into the various packages for the fonts and the pattern seems to be that the OTF fonts don't work

Ghostty Logs

info: ghostty version=1.3.1-arch1.1
info: ghostty build optimize=ReleaseFast
info: runtime=.gtk
info: font_backend=.fontconfig_freetype
info: dependency harfbuzz=13.2.0
info: dependency fontconfig=21701
info: renderer=renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.OpenGL)
info: libxev default backend=io_uring
info(os_locale): setlocale from env result=en_US.UTF-8
info(gtk): GTK version build=4.20.3 runtime=4.20.3
info(gtk): libadwaita version build=1.8.4 runtime=1.8.4
info: reading configuration file path=/home/jlb/.config/ghostty/config
info(config): default shell source=env value=/usr/bin/bash
warning(gtk_ghostty_application): setting GDK_DEBUG=
warning(gtk_ghostty_application): setting GDK_DISABLE=gles-api,vulkan
warning(glib): WARNING: Adwaita: Using GtkSettings:gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme with libadwaita is unsupported. Please use AdwStyleManager:color-scheme instead.
info(opengl): loaded OpenGL 4.6
info(font_shared_grid_set): font regular: Noto Sans Mono Regular
info(font_shared_grid_set): font bold: Noto Sans Mono Bold
info(font_shared_grid_set): font italic: Noto Sans Mono Regular
info(font_shared_grid_set): font bold_italic: Noto Sans Mono Bold
info(io_exec): found Ghostty resources dir: /usr/share/ghostty
info(io_exec): shell integration automatically injected shell=.bash
warning(gtk_ghostty_application): unimplemented action=.cell_size
info(io_exec): started subcommand path=/bin/sh pid=441545

### Ghostty Version

```text
Ghostty 1.3.1-arch1.1

Version
  - version: 1.3.1-arch1.1
  - channel: tip
Build Config
  - Zig version   : 0.15.2
  - build mode    : .ReleaseFast
  - app runtime   : .gtk
  - font engine   : .fontconfig_freetype
  - renderer      : renderer.generic.Renderer(renderer.OpenGL)
  - libxev        : io_uring
  - kernel version: 6.19.7-1-cachyos
  - desktop env   : other
  - GTK version   :
    build         : 4.20.3
    runtime       : 4.20.3
  - libadwaita    : enabled
    build         : 1.8.4
    runtime       : 1.8.4
  - libX11        : enabled
  - libwayland    : enabled

### OS Version Information

CachyOS 2026-03-19

### (Linux only) Display Server

Wayland

### (Linux only) Desktop Environment/Window Manager

plasmashell 6.6.3

### Minimal Ghostty Configuration

```ini
font-family = "Maple Mono"
mouse-scroll-multiplier = precision:1,discrete:1

Additional Relevant Configuration

No response

I acknowledge that:

• I have reviewed the FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT among them.
• I have searched the Ghostty repository (both open and closed Discussions and Issues) and confirm this is not a duplicate of an existing issue or discussion.
• I have checked the "Preview" tab on all text fields to ensure that everything looks right, and have wrapped all configuration and code in code blocks with a group of three backticks (```) on separate lines.

[pluiedev]

Could you try font-family = Maple Mono without the quotes?

[americanjeff]

I tried it. Same result. But I have experimented a bit more since my initial report and the OTF theory is not panning out. I have found some OTF fonts that work and some TTF fonts that don't.

For example I have otf-ibm-plex installed and when I set font-family = "IBM Plex Mono" the font is used as it should be.

I also have ttf-iosevka-nerd installed and while +list-fonts does include "Iosevka Nerd Font" and "Iosevka Nerd Font Mono" I have tried those and they don't work.

[americanjeff]

OK, not clear what was happening when I tried it without quotes before or why some fonts work when the quotes are there but now they all work when I leave out the quotes. Sorry for wasting people's time.

[americanjeff]

Oh, I did figure out why I put the quotes in to begin with. The example in https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference has quotes

[infogtkkemendikdasmen]

Thanks for sharing the solution. Font configuration issues can be confusing, especially when fallback fonts are used silently. I recently read a guide about handling system configuration and technical setups that explained similar troubleshooting steps. It might help others as well: https://infogtkkemendikdasmen.com/