# Missing character that used to work?

**URL:** <https://discourse.asciinema.org/t/missing-character-that-used-to-work/1055>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [December 23, 2025, 1:00pm UTC](https://discourse.asciinema.org/t/missing-character-that-used-to-work/1055 "2025-12-23T13:00:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nedbat](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/discourse.asciinema.org/nedbat/32/679_2.png) [@nedbat](https://discourse.asciinema.org/u/nedbat)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2025, 1:00pm UTC](https://discourse.asciinema.org/t/missing-character-that-used-to-work/1055/1 "2025-12-23T13:00:35Z")

</div>

I have a gif on my project’s home page that I made two years ago: [docs: better gif · nedbat/watchgha@8e1446c · GitHub](https://github.com/nedbat/watchgha/commit/8e1446c765ffb13dbd7cf2104a8ec6953ddf0cc6)

Next to the word “queued” is a Unicode “Timer Clock” character (U+23F2).

When I remake that gif now ( [docs: updated gif · nedbat/watchgha@1282902 · GitHub](https://github.com/nedbat/watchgha/commit/12829024996766c36134d5072abb0e65fd80a5fb) ), the timer clock is a boxed question mark. I’ve tried a number of fonts, nothing fixes it.

The terminal I’m capturing (iTerm2) shows it properly:

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/uploads/asciinema/original/1X/d93ddc9da2bde792328a147f0a4db9e5d73bcb3f.png)

The terminal is using “Monego Nerd Font”, and even if I specify that font with `agg`, the character isn’t drawn properly.

I used this command to record:  
`asciinema rec --overwrite watch.cast --command “watch_gha_runs --wait-for-start --poll=5”`  
and this to convert:  
`agg --speed=10 --font-family=“Monego Nerd Font,Symbola” --font-size=18 watch.cast watch.gif`

The Symbola font has this character, and if I specify just Symbola, the character appears (but all the text is ugly!)

These same commands made the original image two years ago. What has changed, and how can I get the correct output?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ku1ik](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/discourse.asciinema.org/ku1ik/32/171_2.png) [@ku1ik](https://discourse.asciinema.org/u/ku1ik)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://discourse.asciinema.org/t/missing-character-that-used-to-work/1055/2 "2025-12-23T20:16:30Z")

</div>

Hey @nedbat. One thing that might have changed since you made the original gif could be the default renderer used by agg. Run `agg –help` to see the possible values for the renderer backend, and try with the other (non-default) one. There’s a chance it may render fine this way.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nedbat](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/discourse.asciinema.org/nedbat/32/679_2.png) [@nedbat](https://discourse.asciinema.org/u/nedbat)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://discourse.asciinema.org/t/missing-character-that-used-to-work/1055/3 "2025-12-23T23:45:51Z")

</div>

Thanks, that worked! `--renderer=fontdue` got me my character back!