I'm forwarding the Debian bug reported: https://bugs.debian.org/815559 If the font configured is missing konsole shows a $BACKGROUND colored window, and stays in an almost non responsive mode till you change the font (by non responsive I mean, it takes a long time for the menus to appear, or the setttings window to change tabs). It would be better if konsole could fallback to some other fonts, either using the one configured as the applications wide monospace font, or simply trying the "Monospace" font, or using any of the available fonts should be enough. Happy hacking, Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install a new monospace font 2. Start konsole and configure it to use the newly installed font 3. Stop konsole 4. Deinstall the font 5. Start konsole again Actual Results: A black screen is shown, konsole is almost non responsive Expected Results: konsole starts with the default font, or fallbacks to any other available font.
If the font is not found, "Qt will use the closest matching installed font." which does seem to work on my system. I don't think anything has changed recently and your version isn't that old. Could you tell what font the system picked?
Sorry, it was a long time ago, and I don't remember which font I've used. But before I forget, I'm currently using: For system fonts the fonts-3270 and fonts-anonymous-pro packages, and for user installed fonts the ones provided in https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/ In particular: https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/blob/master/patched-fonts/Monofur/Regular/complete/monofur%20for%20Powerline%20Nerd%20Font%20Complete%20Mono.ttf I'm testing konsole 16.08.0 and the issue seems almost completely gone, for the fonts I've tested at least. When working with a system font, after removal konsole fallsback to Monospace. But, when the font is installed in the user home then after removal the fallback can be any font, and the font metrics for the fallback seem to be wrong (the glyphs are cut).
It is apparent that the original problem has been resolved. If you are still having an issue with font metrics you can open a separate bug report.