What causes "Failed to load the font: " in sqshq/sampler?

Set the font to one of the supported built-in names (e.g. standard, big, block, shadow...) exactly as shipped

Failed to load the font:

Error message

Failed to load the font:

What it means

NewAsciiBox panics when the embedded font file (font name + ".flf") cannot be loaded from the bundled assets. The component requires one of the known figlet-style fonts embedded in the binary, so an unknown font name in the config is a hard startup failure for that component.

Source

Thrown at component/asciibox/asciibox.go:36

	*data.Consumer
	alert   *data.Alert
	ascii   string
	style   ui.Style
	render  *fl.AsciiRender
	options *fl.RenderOptions
	palette console.Palette
}

const asciiFontExtension = ".flf"

func NewAsciiBox(c config.AsciiBoxConfig, palette console.Palette) *AsciiBox {

	options := fl.NewRenderOptions()
	options.FontName = string(*c.Font)

	fontStr, err := asset.Asset(options.FontName + asciiFontExtension)
	if err != nil {
		panic("Failed to load the font: " + err.Error())
	}

	render := fl.NewAsciiRender()
	_ = render.LoadBindataFont(fontStr, options.FontName)

	color := c.Color
	if color == nil {
		color = &palette.BaseColor
	}

	box := AsciiBox{
		Block:    component.NewBlock(c.Title, *c.Border, palette),
		Consumer: data.NewConsumer(),
		style:    ui.NewStyle(*color),
		render:   render,
		options:  options,
		palette:  palette,
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 9bc7ba732d)

Solutions

Set the font to one of the supported built-in names (e.g. standard, big, block, shadow...) exactly as shipped
Check the embedded asset list / repo fonts directory for valid font file names
Wrap NewAsciiBox/startAll with recover or pre-validate the font value before constructing the component
Add the desired .flf font to the embedded assets if a custom font is genuinely needed

Example fix

// before
font: BigFinale
color: red
// after
font: standard  # supported embedded font
color: red

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

var supportedFonts = map[string]bool{"standard": true, "big": true, "block": true, "shadow": true}
if !supportedFonts[strings.ToLower(cfg.Font)] { cfg.Font = ptr("standard") }

Type guard

func fontAvailable(name string) bool {
    _, err := asset.Asset(name + ".flf")
    return err == nil
}

Try / catch

func newBoxSafe(cfg *Cfg) (box *asciibox.AsciiBox, err error) {
    defer func() { if r := recover(); r != nil { err = fmt.Errorf("ascii box init failed: %v", r) } }()
    return asciibox.NewAsciiBox(cfg), nil
}

Prevention

Validate font names against the embedded list at config load
Keep font values in sync with the shipped .flf assets
Fail fast at startup with a clear message listing valid fonts

When it happens

Trigger: Configuring an ascii-box component with a font value whose <font>.flf is not present in the embedded asset store; asset.Asset(options.FontName+asciiFontExtension) returns an error and the code panics.

Common situations: Typo in the YAML font field; copying a config from another project using different font names; expecting a custom font to be available when only built-in fonts are embedded.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File not found" and ENOENT errors: why libraries can't find a file that should exist — this error's family across 50 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of sqshq/sampler@9bc7ba732d (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2e9311cb62812e16. Report an issue: GitHub.