I don't use qubes currently, but my 5 cents:
1. missing fonts or incorrect locale settings. Having said that I guess you may fix this in two ways:
a) set locale (LC_*, LANG variables) according to your language in shell files in app VM in bashrc (or in template VM in /etc),
b) install missing fonts in template VM.
2. Alternatively you may download the non-minimal template VM and use it instead - minimal VMs may miss fonts for your locale, using non-minimal VM may help.
Bye.Olli.
gpg --search-keys grey_olli , use key w/ fingerprint below:
Key fingerprint = 9901 6808 768C 8B89 544C 9BE0 49F9 5A46 2B98 147E
Blog keys (the blog is mostly in Russian):
http://grey-olli.livejournal.com/tag/