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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Applications > Safari displays incomprehensible fonts

Safari displays incomprehensible fonts
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Preciousss
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Mar 21, 2005, 12:10 PM
 
OK, so I've done a search here, but my problem seems different from what others hve encountered. Here's my reconstruction of it:

- Don't know if it's related but going to the Atom Films homepage would repeatedly make Safari crash. Like 7 times in row. This happened before I started seeing this behavior, so I'm wondering if it's connected.

- Just two days ago, certain fonts started to render as symbols (triangles, arrows). I took screenshots but I'm unsure how to post images here. I think it's in the Arial family or thereabouts.

- Cutting and pasting the weird font between Safari and TextEdit? It shows up in the latter as it normally should. And without even converting to plaintext first.

- FireFox isn't affected at all (though certain letters are displayed as unbolded and italicized). Weird. Netscape is fine, as is IE.

Solutions I have tried, none have worked:

- removing the Safari preferences file in Users\Library\Preferences and allowing Safari to create a new one. Also used OnyX to look for corrupt preference files.

- repairing permissions

- using OnyX to clear the cache, history and url icons.

- DiskWarrior

- changing the encoding in Safari preferences. It's always been set to Western (ISO Latin 1).

- Changing the standard font in Safari preferences.

- Logging out, restarting.

- Running maintenance cron scripts.

Just now I created a new user account and Safari is fine there, so I know it's something up with my primary account. But what? Last night I downloaded a new copy of Safari--I was thinking I could just install it over my buggy copy, but decided not to since I wasn't sure if I should manually remove all old Safari files first. If the problem is in a bookmarks file, or url icon folder or whatever, I'm not sure if dropping a new copy of Safari on top of all of that will make them go away.

I have not installed any new fonts. Another thread identified Office 2004 as a culprit for their troubles. I have an upgrade disc that I used on my v.X copy of Office, but that was weeks and weeks ago. Would it take this long to show up if this is the cause?

Lastly, here's my system info: TiBook, 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 10.3.8, Safari
v.1.2.4.

I've actually liked using FireFox as my main browser in the past two days. It certainly seems faster. But I miss Safari. Any help would be appreciated.
     
Hal Itosis
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Mar 21, 2005, 04:41 PM
 
I don't think OnyX clears font caches.
You could give Font Finagler a try...
-HI-
     
Preciousss  (op)
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Mar 21, 2005, 07:33 PM
 
Ack! Looks like Mail is being affected now too. Just got my first email a few minutes ago where those damn characters appear instead of header text.

Thanks for the tip on Font Finagler, Hal. Though it may help, I think I'll look for a another solution (i.e. free) in the meantime. Can't bring myself to pay for something I feel I shouldn't have to.

I know, I know. Put up or shut up. If anybody has any other ideas, please post a reply.

Update (a few hours after this last post):

Oh no!!!! It's spreading. Now NetNewsWire Lite is displaying it (again, selectively, like Safari and Mail) in some feeds! What the hell is happening here?
( Last edited by Preciousss; Mar 21, 2005 at 11:27 PM. )
     
Preciousss  (op)
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Mar 22, 2005, 02:14 AM
 
For anybody who cares, here's an update.

Finally got around to using Font Book to disable fonts by trial and error. Some strange stuff happened:

- I don't recall entirely now, but there was at least one font called Verda. This was the one that had all the weird characters that were taking over Safari, Mail and NetNewsWire Lite.

- After disabling it, the name Verda changed to Wingding (or was it Webding?) and was dimmed to indicate it was disabled. Thing is, the fonts displayed in the preview for this ___ding font were *not* the ones that displayed inside Verda.

- I opened up Safari, and this time a page that previously had portions of the Verda text was covered in an entirely new weird text.

- I tracked it down in Font Book as one of the ____dings (can't remember which one). Disabled that too. Nothing. Found some other dings that I disabled as well. Should've been paying closer attention because Safari was now displaying normal letters, though the layout was all wrong.

- Don't remember the sequence of events next, but Safari reverted back to the second freaky fonts (one of the dings) for some reason.

- I went all the way up Font Book, checking all of the fonts for those characters, and found two unnamed slots hanging out at the top of the list. They weren't there previously. The first I clicked was that Verda font! Disabled it again.

- The second unnamed one was that ding font. Disabled it. Both disappeared.

- I enabled all of the fonts I disabled again, just to pinpoint which one was the troublemaker. Verda was nowhere to be seen.

- Get this, even with everything enabled again, Safari was back to its normal self. For the most part. The links on a site I designed were a different font than they normally are. Also, I checked Mail for that one message, and NetNewsWire Lite for that one post that had Verda characters. Both were fine.

- But! In Safari, Mail, and NetNewsWire Lite, that weird formatting thing is going on that I mentioned was happening to FireFox in an earlier post: letters italicized and unbolded when they shouldn't be, or entire bits of text bolded. Everything is readable, but the formatting is off. And not in a super intrusive way either.

OK, I know next to nothing about fonts except that they can get corrupted somehow, or that bad ones can throw you into chaos. How does this happen, and what do I do to prevent it? Remember, I have not intentionally installed any new fonts. And the Office 2004 upgrade? That was almost 2 months ago--could this be related? I'm not sure why this happened or how to solve it all the way. Help please.
     
Preciousss  (op)
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Mar 22, 2005, 02:42 AM
 
I think I got it this time.

For those still tuning in, I figured out that if there's a bullet point next to a font in Font Book, it means there are duplicates. You can resolve them by highlighting the one you want to keep and going to Edit > Resolve Duplicates.

There were a ton of duplicates, mostly my web fonts. What's weird is that often times, switching back and forth in the preview mode to see what differences there were between duplicates, it looked like the lower case "o" would shift to the left or right. Maybe some other minor spacing between sets of letters. Weird!

Everything looks as it should in Safari, Mail and NetNewsWire Lite now. The only questions I have left are where did all the duplicates come from, and what that Verda font was all about.
     
zzarg
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Mar 22, 2005, 07:02 AM
 
since building my machine I've not installed new fonts, yet ... I also discovered a bunch of duplicates.
Recently people have been asking why I send emails with Hangul characters in... not speaking a word of Korean I don't know either, but when I check what I sent there they are, replacing letters I know I typed in whatever the default font is in Entourage for HTML mail !
     
Hal Itosis
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Mar 22, 2005, 07:18 PM
 
Originally posted by Preciousss:
I think I'll look for a another solution (i.e. free) in the meantime.
Can't bring myself to pay for something I feel I shouldn't have to.
I know, I know. Put up or shut up.
Doesn't cost anything to try. (I think the first few 'cleanings' are free).
-HI-
     
   
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