Pointing fingers

There is a series of defects in IntelliJ 5.0 on Linux that go like this:

I can not open 'Appearance' settings in IDE Settings (File -> Settings -> Appearance).
The main problem is that it is system-specific bug. On other PCs everything works fine.
No appearance settings window opens and exception listed below appears in log:

2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - Error during dispatching of java.awt.event.MouseEvent[MOUSE_RELEASED,(194,244),button=1,modifiers=Button1,clickCount=1] on dialog9
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - IntelliJ IDEA 5.0 Build #3436
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - JDK: 1.5.0_04
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - Vendor: Sun Microsystems Inc.
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - OS: Windows XP
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - Last Action: ShowSettings
2005-08-03 13:39:45,250 [ 733235] ERROR - com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue - Error during dispatching of java.awt.event.MouseEvent[MOUSE_RELEASED,(194,244),button=1,modifiers=Button1,clickCount=1] on dialog9
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -2147483648
at sun.font.CMap$CMapFormat4.getGlyph(CMap.java:540)

The defect status is a discouraging Won't Fix. The developer comment is:

This is identified Sun JRE issue: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6247425

Ok, what does that SUN bug say?

Bug ID:	6247425
Votes	0
Synopsis	Unhandled OutOfBounds exception while parsing TTF files
Category	java:classes_2d
Reported Against	b28
Release Fixed	mustang(b33)
State	Closed, fixed
Related Bugs
Submit Date	29-MAR-2005
Description	For some TTF files with CMAP format 4 i am seeing following exception: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -2147483648 at sun.font.CMap$CMapFormat4.getGlyph(CMap.java:547) at sun.font.TrueTypeGlyphMapper.charToGlyph(TrueTypeGlyphMapper.java:115) at sun.font.CharToGlyphMapper.canDisplay(CharToGlyphMapper.java:40) at sun.font.Font2D.canDisplay(Font2D.java:426) at java.awt.Font.canDisplay(Font.java:1780) xxxxx@xxxxx 2005-03-29 16:25:48 GMT
Work Around	N/A
Evaluation	Examining fonts with ttfdump it seems they are malformed - entrySelector=1024 and searchRange=8192 while segCount=22 (we read same numbers in CMap.java). This is weird because according to spec these numbers are derived from segCount. Proper values for table like this are 4 and 32 - so it looks like byteorder is wrong. We may either reject such fonts as malformed or simply ignore them and derive appropriate values ourselves. (windows shows these fonts with font viewer) In any case parsing CMAP we should catch all potential exceptions. xxxxx@xxxxx 2005-03-29 16:25:48 GMT

So, apparently, I have malformed fonts installed on my Linux box. But notice SUN's status: Closed, fixed, albeit in a future release.

IntelliJ's status of Won't fix is just stupid. Just surround the exception-throwing code with a handler and warn the user about broken fonts. This is infinitely better than crashing. And for bonus points, backport the JDK 6 fix to a replacement class so that IDEA can handle the broken fonts. What's so hard about that?

UPDATE: I just tried out Mustang b51 (JDK 1.6 beta) to see if the bug was indeed fixed. Again IDEA crashes. At least there is console output:

binkley@hermes:~/opt/idea/bin>java: ../../../src/share/native/sun/awt/font/t2k/t1.c:2178: tsi_T1GetGlyphIndexFromAdobeCode: Assertion `0' failed.

Time to go update the Closed, fixed SUN bug.

UPDATE: That was quick! Phil, the nice man from SUN, mailed me later after I posted the new bug:

6247425 was a bug in a TrueType font.
The message here is a bug in a Type1 font.
They are unrelated except that it sounds like you hit the first
bug before you could reach the second bug and now you can reach
the second bug.
I recall that SuSE 9.2 Pro has a *LOT* of fonts of variable quality.
We looked at those fonts - and there were a few - that caused a crash
in the same area as this - it was bug 6229389 ixed it in mustang b33.

I especially appreciate that he provided me means further in the mail to track down the bad font. Thank you, Phil!