Weird issues with user installed fonts

Distribution

22.1

Package version

6.4.8

Graphics hardware in use

No response

Frequency

Quite often

Bug description

I'm having a weird issue with fonts, specifically helvetica-compressed.otf.

Steps to reproduce

After installing a handful of fonts I downloaded from the internet, I noticed that the line spacing in Chromium was maybe half of what it's supposed to be. In other words, the text from each line was pretty much on top of each other, but only on certain websites. craigslist.org homepage was one of them. I wish I had a screenshot to share but unfortunately I'm having trouble reproducing this issue after I fixed it by uninstalling certain fonts.

Here's an issue I can reproduce: the font helvetica-compressed is causing my WhatsApp client ZapZap to set it as the default for people's names in the chat bubbles. I can reproduce this issue by uninstalling helvetica-compressed.otf (from .local/share/fonts/Adobe/OpenType), verifying that ZapZap looks normal again, then reinstalling helvetica-compressed and seeing that the issue returns.

Strangely enough, I noticed helvetica-compressed causing trouble while I was trying to fix the line spacing issue in Chromium. After uninstalling a few fonts, the line spacing issue was fixed, but everything on the craigslist.org homepage was now defaulting to helvetica-compressed. Once I uninstalled helvetica-compressed, everything was good again. So this font seems to be worming its way in to various applications in a very weird way.

Maybe I downloaded a bad font from the internet. I wish I could troubleshoot this further but I've already been at this for an hour tonight. So I just wanted to flag it here at the very least. Thank you for continuing to build Linux Mint!

Expected behavior

Installed fonts should not be messing with other parts of the system.

Additional information

No response

Start by reproducing the font behavior using .local/share/fonts/Adobe/OpenType/helvetica-compressed.otf, Chromium, and the ZapZap client, comparing the affected and uninstalled states. The report does not name a Cinnamon file, test, or entry point; progress would require identifying whether the font issue is caused by Cinnamon or by the installed font and defining a reliable reproduction.