Fails to run with ‘No fonts found!’ error

[tkinias]

I just downloaded & built simutrans-extended after several years away, and I can't get it to execute.

I built it on a Debian Testing machine (configured via autoconf), using the current source from GitHub, and I've got pak128.britain-ex-nightly installed. When I try to run it, I get the following message:

``dr_fatal_notify: ERROR: No fonts found!``

I tried to install the nightly builds deb, but it won't install due to a dependency on libpng12-0 which is no longer in Debian.

Any ideas? Am I missing something obvious?

[Matthew]

Welcome to the International Simutrans Forum and to the Extended corner in particular!

The same bug has already been reported as a GitHub issue, so it looks like it's not a problem with your setup specifically. I don't know enough to be certain of the cause, but don't give up hope, as there are other people on the forum who know a lot more.

I reported a libpng bug with the .deb here. If it's the same issue, it's a packaging bug that can be fixed with a one-line change if the rest of the package is working.

As a workaround, Extended is also available on Linux from Steam using their Beta facility. I haven't tested the latest version but Roboron is usually good at keeping it working. But I guess you wouldn't be building it yourself if you were happy taking it from Steam...

[tkinias]

Thanks! I'm not sure how I missed the GitHub issue (other than that Google results aren't as reliable as they once were).

Maybe I'll try hacking the .deb over the weekend. It's been about 20 years since I futzed around with making Debian packages, but in theory I once understood it 

And yeah, I don't use Steam. I just got fully out of the habit of playing non-FOSS games back in the years when trying to make Windows games run under WINE was more pain than it was worth, and tbh haven't ever paid much attention to Steam (under the probably dated assumption that it doesn't *really* work all that well).

[jamespetts]

Can I check whether there is anything in the simutrans/font directory? That error suggests that the fonts that should be there are missing.