Twenty Thirteen: Bitter Font not loading in IE8

[RDall]

Bitter Font not loading as originally mentioned here:
​http://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/08/twenty-thirteen-tasks-and-priorities-during-beta-period/#comment-8364

IE 8 on Windows 7 doesn't load the Bitter font. See Screenshot: ​http://cl.ly/image/0t033l0I3K1N

The font is being properly called in the font-family css it is just not being loaded.

This is only affecting IE8… IE9 has the same css (as seen in the developer window)

[obenland]

Apparently IE has problems to recognize multiple fonts in one request to Google fonts.

I doubt my patch is the best solution. Chances are that the paths it references change in the future. But it's a start.

[celloexpressions]

That's better but it only loads the bold variant, so perhaps the problem is with the regular variant in general.

In case it helps, this is the error that IE gives me:

CSS3111: @font-face encountered unknown error. 
m9utyiSe0RUNoAmpferM-g.eot

With the patch, it gives the previous and this:

CSS3111: @font-face encountered unknown error. 
XexqN1a_o27MhVVdJFKAcA.eot

Both of those URLs correspond to the regular version.

[obenland]

Huh, wasn't even looking for that. Doesn't appear in IE8 on win7. Weird.

[obenland]

Apparently the error ​CSS3111 is usually caused by an issue with the font's binary source.

I'm not sure how much we can do about that on our end. Having the bold version is a step in the right direction, though.

[lancewillett]

I think it's an OK trade-off for the font to fall back in IE8 to the font stack we have in place. Georgia does a good job as second choice. :)

[lancewillett]

Also:

IE 8 on Windows 7

How often will that be the case? Windows 7 shipped with IE9 as default browser; how likely that someone would know how to downgrade it?

[obenland]

I don't mind going with Georgia either. That's what a fallback is for ;)

[celloexpressions]

Replying to lancewillett:

Also:

IE 8 on Windows 7

How often will that be the case? Windows 7 shipped with IE9 as default browser; how likely that someone would know how to downgrade it?

Windows 7 actually ships with IE8, and unfortunately I know people who refuse to update. Most Win7s are updated to IE9 (now 10) though. That + XP is why there's still such a large market share.

Georgia's just fine, unless we just want to load Bitter Bold.

[lancewillett]

Weird that Source Sans loads OK. Did anyone research if this is a known bug with Google Webfonts?

[rdall]

Replying to lancewillett:

Weird that Source Sans loads OK. Did anyone research if this is a known bug with Google Webfonts?

I know I saw that too so I though it was because we didn't load bitter properly… Why would a bug effect one font and not the other?

[lancewillett]

Since the other font, and the Bitter bold weight loads OK, sounds more like a bug in the binary file on Google's end. Anyone up for researching and reporting it to Google Webfonts team? (If they have a bug tracker, that is.)

[rdall]

Submitted issue ticket to Google Font Directory Forum.

​http://code.google.com/p/googlefontdirectory/issues/detail?id=212

Suggest we close ticket as we can't fix the problem it is external.

[lancewillett]

Moving into Awaiting Review so we can remember to follow up on it.