[Breed43214]

@Breed43214 thanks a lot for the sample.
This is indeed a bug of our packaged libass for windows. On the windows platform, libass uses directwrite to handle fonts so it should detect your system installed fonts. Let's see if we can get it sorted out.

In the meantime, this libass.dll should fix your issue: https://www.mediafire.com/file/43esl50vu...s.dll/file
You can replace the existing one (backup it first please) in C:\Program Files\Kodi

Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I'll give that DLL a go.

Just to note that this isn't solely a Windows issue, as it also happens on Android. It's likely to be a slightly different issue since obviously libass won't use DirectWrite and I don't even know if Android has a built in font repository (I assume it must right?) but the effect is the same.

I would say this is where the media/fonts/ folder should come into play but doesn't.

[enen92]

@Breed43214 thanks a lot for the sample.
This is indeed a bug of our packaged libass for windows. On the windows platform, libass uses directwrite to handle fonts so it should detect your system installed fonts. Let's see if we can get it sorted out.

In the meantime, this libass.dll should fix your issue: https://www.mediafire.com/file/43esl50vu...s.dll/file
You can replace the existing one (backup it first please) in C:\Program Files\Kodi

Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I'll give that DLL a go.

Just to note that this isn't solely a Windows issue, as it also happens on Android. It's likely to be a slightly different issue since obviously libass won't use DirectWrite and I don't even know if Android has a built in font repository (I assume it must right?) but the effect is the same.

I would say this is where the media/fonts/ folder should come into play but doesn't.

It should if https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/19535 gets in
For the original issue (directwrite not used) it will require a bit more work as we probably could use the opportunity to update libass platform-wise

[Breed43214]

@Breed43214 thanks a lot for the sample.
This is indeed a bug of our packaged libass for windows. On the windows platform, libass uses directwrite to handle fonts so it should detect your system installed fonts. Let's see if we can get it sorted out.

In the meantime, this libass.dll should fix your issue: https://www.mediafire.com/file/43esl50vu...s.dll/file
You can replace the existing one (backup it first please) in C:\Program Files\Kodi

Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I'll give that DLL a go.

Just to note that this isn't solely a Windows issue, as it also happens on Android. It's likely to be a slightly different issue since obviously libass won't use DirectWrite and I don't even know if Android has a built in font repository (I assume it must right?) but the effect is the same.

I would say this is where the media/fonts/ folder should come into play but doesn't.

It should if https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/19535 gets in
For the original issue (directwrite not used) it will require a bit more work as we probably could use the opportunity to update libass platform-wise

Looks promising! Thanks for your attention on this.

The above pull request should also work on Windows anyway to work around DirectWrite not being used in the meantime - the contents of the Windows Font directory can be copied into /media/Fonts

Or, I can just use the .dll you provided. Either way!

[Paxxi]

@Breed43214 if you navigate to %appdata%\Kodi\media in explorer and create a folder called Fonts then it should work correctly. It seems that the directwrite fontloader fails if that folder doesn't exist and Kodi does not create it automatically. This will be fixed but it's an easy workaround for now.

[Breed43214]

@Breed43214 if you navigate to %appdata%\Kodi\media in explorer and create a folder called Fonts then it should work correctly. It seems that the directwrite fontloader fails if that folder doesn't exist and Kodi does not create it automatically. This will be fixed but it's an easy workaround for now.

Thanks for that.

To be honest Windows was my main platform up until Xmas. I had a PC/Server behind my TV in the Living Room and a Fire Stick 4K in the bedroom.

At Xmas I switched the PC for a FireCube and moved the PC to the cupboard under the stairs (I need to change its hostname to Harry-Potter) so my I'm almost 100% Android now (still have Kodi on a laptop for travelling, but honestly tend to use MPC-HC more there...) so it's great to see enen92's fix merged - I'm using the latest nightly and it works a charm. I've transposed my Windows Font folder to my Android devices.

It's great Windows can be fixed quickly though!

Now I just need to keep a dedicated Font folder on my Server and write a script to push new Fonts added to it to my Android devices automatically via ADB.

[enen92]

Both fixes (the directwrite detection fix and the font loading from userdata) have been merged to v20 and backported to Matrix/v19.1. They should be available soon when 19.1 is out.
Marking the thread as solved