Fonts Messed Up 10.5.2 Safari And Mail

[WeAreForsaken]

So, after upgrading to 10.5.2, while using safari, Letters just seem to be missing on some websites, while on others they just look jumbled. It is totally unreadable. In mail it happened on a couple words.. and it wouldnt show a ? whenever i typed it. anyone else having this problem???

 

[xraydoc]

Do you have Microsoft Office 2004 or 2008 installed? They have a habit of screwing up fonts by installing duplicates.

Use Font Book to disable any duplicate fonts. On Font Book's font list, any font name with a little grey dot to the right of it has a duplicate font installed and activated. Highlight the font name, then choose Resolve Duplicates from the Edit menu. Quit the offending apps (Safari, Mail) and relaunch. Should help.

 

[hhas]

I had the same problem after updating to 10.5.2. As xraydoc says, disabling duplicate fonts and restarting affected apps appears to fix it.

 

[hailunix]

Duplicate fonts don't seem to be the only issue

Can anyone think of issues besides the duplicate font ones mentioned? I have gone through Font Book and found/deleted the duplicate fonts. Heh maybe deleting wasn't the best way but I certainly don't have duplicates now. I've also tried clearing the font caches but that doesn't seem to have any effect either.

Despite being duplicate free, I still see the same exact issues described in the original message. Text being mushed together/overlapping in Safari. In Mail it tends to manifest as text completely missing or partially missing from e-mails.

Any thoughts?

 

[redsteven]

Does this only happen in mail and safari? Check if there's a way to change the default fonts on those applications in the preferences.

Also, if it's ONLY those apps, then maybe it has something to do with a corrupted library or preferences that they share.

 

[hailunix]

The only time I've noticed the issue is in mail and safari. The library idea is interesting, I guess I just assumed that if something in there was corrupted that the issue would be constant. Although I guess the same thing could be said for fonts. I'll have to keep better track of when this pops up, but it seems like it happens when I come out of a suspend. In the end a simple restart of the two applications fixes the issue, sometimes for the rest of the day (which would tie in with it coming out of suspend).

 

[hailunix]

Example

For future reference, an example of the offending behavior:

http://img.skitch.com/20080307-kmch2ubk4bmr5ur2khauffahha.jpg

 

[redsteven]

For future reference, an example of the offending behavior:

http://img.skitch.com/20080307-kmch2ubk4bmr5ur2khauffahha.jpg

Does it only happen in links? Because in that pictures both of our name's are jumbled, but the names on this board are links.

 

[hailunix]

Does it only happen in links? Because in that pictures both of our name's are jumbled, but the names on this board are links.

Nope, I have seen the behavior when things aren't linked. I'm guessing just varying font or font properties? My wife is now seeing it on a different machine with a different account. The only thing they have in common is the fact that both machines are using NFS for home directories.

I really hope it isn't NFS because that will be quite disappointing. I'm not really sure what it could be. It seems like duplicate fonts or pref corruption would cause constant oddities. This however only seem to happen after coming out of suspend.

 

[redsteven]

were those two computers ever "linked" in anyway?

Like did you use migration assistant to transfer user accounts, because that could transfer corrupt files.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. Try making a new user account and see if you encounter the problem with that. The solution may very well be migrating over to a new user account.

I had to do that once and it was no big deal. There are instructions on apples web site on how to do it easily.

You can still use the same name and everything for the new account... u just delete the old one first.

 

[hailunix]

Other than the fact that they share home directories they really weren't linked up.

I've since moved both accounts that had troulbe to local home directories (on each mac). I haven't noticed the issue and I don't think my wife has either. Unfortunatley one thing I also did at the same time (well the night before) was remove our ~/Library/Fonts directory from each persons respective home directory. I'm not sure which solution fixed the problem I'll re-post if I see the issue again. I'm thinking it was related to some corruption in that Fonts directory, whether it was caused by some wacky NFS issue I can't say.

Clarification: when I say 'they share home directories' I mean that both users had their own individual home directories, but they were located on a NFS file server. So the users themselves weren't sharing home directories with eachother, but between two machines.

 

[redsteven]

Other than the fact that they share home directories they really weren't linked up.

I've since moved both accounts that had troulbe to local home directories (on each mac). I haven't noticed the issue and I don't think my wife has either. Unfortunatley one thing I also did at the same time (well the night before) was remove our ~/Library/Fonts directory from each persons respective home directory. I'm not sure which solution fixed the problem I'll re-post if I see the issue again. I'm thinking it was related to some corruption in that Fonts directory, whether it was caused by some wacky NFS issue I can't say.

Clarification: when I say 'they share home directories' I mean that both users had their own individual home directories, but they were located on a NFS file server. So the users themselves weren't sharing home directories with eachother, but between two machines.

Well, I think it would be good to at least leave your user folder on the internal HD............

 

[tolmang]

Weird font in Safari and Mail after Office 2008 installed

I had a script font show up all over in Safari and Mail after installing Office 2008. I changed the fonts in both apps preferences but it was not affected. I found the offending font (handwriting) and deleted it from my fonts library, rebooted and it still was there. I searched using spotlight and didn't see it anywhere else on my hard drive.

Then I launched Font Book and it was still in the list. I disabled it which resolved the issue.

 

[redsteven]

There are some places (in the system folder i think) where spotlight will NOT search... so you may still have files for the font that spotlight isn't reporting to you.

I don't know how to get around that though.