Why doesnt newsprint work properly?

[dontcareaboutuser]

Hello. Im simplying trying to make newsprint work on a solid color, why doesnt it?
It either blacks out the entire screen, doesnt do anything, or blacks out everything except for where Im trying to apply circles.
I had to apply newsprint cirles on a solid color red background and I went through like 40 hurdles just to put circles on a red background.
Im trying to do that same thing, literally just circles on red text, but it doesnt work? 
Doesnt matter if its black on white, white on black, rgb, cmyk, it will do everything besides simply apply circles.
Or it does apply circles, but they are incredibly small, only white (cant be changed despite changing from black on white, rgb, etc) and are actually squares.

This effect was working perfectly a few days ago and Im trying to apply it in the same way and no dice. I opened my older projects to see how I did it, and I try to replicate the process but nothing.

Its really annoying me, Ive been at this on and off for 8 hours and Ive got to get this done. 

It can do lines perfectly, but as soon as I ask for circles i get these small white squares (despite selecting circle) that are incredibly far apart so its barely even noticable on my text.
Why cant gimp just work the same way twice

Im so burnt out over this simple issue when I know ive done it countless times. I dont get it.

[denzjos]

Circles on a background like this ?
   

[rich2005]

The newsprint filter is a type of 'artistic' halftoning. (For those who do not know Halftoning = dots on a regular grid, dots varying in size to give an impression of shading.)

A solid colour therefore is a grid of equal sized dots. You can do that manually. While it would be nice for the GEGL filter to do this, it does fail unless there is some variation in the image.

This an example with some gradients introduced next to solid colour: https://i.imgur.com/MtGHTMq.png

There are other ways, as denzjos, the gimp_gmic_qt plugin http://www.gmic.eu has some halftone filters

Another old plugin generates a greyscale image. example:  https://i.imgur.com/kCBczm1.png For colour it can be used as an overlay.

You can get that from: https://gimplearn.net/viewtopic.php?t=190

edit: search for alternatives

1) The old (Gimp 2.8) Newsprint plugin. You said you had old projects where it worked, maybe with the old plugin. It does work with Gimp 2.10. If you are using Windows I can provide, linux probably provide (depends on distro) . MacOS - no.
Gives this:  https://i.imgur.com/6OR8wq4.jpg

2) In Filters -> Render -> Pattern the unlikely Linear Sinusoid. Looks like this. Note the mode from the Blending Optionsdrop-down menu.  https://i.imgur.com/SL77fYo.jpg

[denzjos]

@ dontcareaboutuser, we do care. if you want newsprint on solid text, then blur it first (Filters / Blur /Gaussian Blur) and then use the newsprint plugin.