Japanese text displaying as random characters

[Jaster]

Hi,

Often when I browse certain Japanese sites or open a 'rar' file that contains files with Japanese filenames they sometimes appear as random characters. For example something like this: "ハートブレイカー"

So far it has occurred in programs such as Finder, Safari, Firefox etc.

Is there any known solution?

Thanks.

 

[nastebu]

Hi,

Often when I browse certain Japanese sites or open a 'rar' file that contains files with Japanese filenames they sometimes appear as random characters. For example something like this: "ハートブレイカー"

So far it has occurred in programs such as Finder, Safari, Firefox etc.

Is there any known solution?

Thanks.

Hmmm... it shouldn't happen. Give a url of one of the websites that is affected.

 

[davidlv]

no Japanese fonts installed

Check using Font Book to make sure at least one Japanese font, like Osaka, is installed (not turned off). And check in the language preference pane to see if Japanese is enabled?

 

[Jaster]

Hmmm... it shouldn't happen. Give a url of one of the websites that is affected.

http://hnac.to/blog/?p=2101

Both the blog post and comments don't display properly.

Check using Font Book to make sure at least one Japanese font, like Osaka, is installed (not turned off). And check in the language preference pane to see if Japanese is enabled?

Already have them enabled.

 

[calderone]

http://hnac.to/blog/?p=2101

Both the blog post and comments don't display properly.



Already have them enabled.

I was going to recommend changing the text encoding. I tried it on this page, all 4 Japanese encoding types and UTF-8 as specified in the source code and nothing. I got some half-width katakana, random Kanji, and miscellaneous wingdings using Shift_JIS which typically clears these issues up.

There is definitely some strangeness going on.

 

[angelwatt]

I think there's something wrong with that site personally. I'm at work on my XP machine where I have Japanese enabled and it's not displaying correctly. The page had a character encoding of UTF-8, which should be fine, but it's possible their web host has a misconfiguration that is trying to use another encoding, or when the owner uploaded the file something when awry. In any case, at least for that site it's not your machine's fault. It could be similar with the RAR files. Often if that file gets passed through someone who doesn't have Japanese enabled the characters will become corrupt like you're seeing. Again, not much you can do.

 

[calderone]

^ I agree with your assessment. Best thing you can do is contact the site admin and let them know.

Also, to the OP, thanks for the site. It looks pretty interesting and would be useful for keeping up with my Japanese. Now, if only the text was actually Japanese...

I actually think I will twitter the site owner.

 

[Jaster]

I was going to recommend changing the text encoding. I tried it on this page, all 4 Japanese encoding types and UTF-8 as specified in the source code and nothing. I got some half-width katakana, random Kanji, and miscellaneous wingdings using Shift_JIS which typically clears these issues up.

There is definitely some strangeness going on.

I think there's something wrong with that site personally. I'm at work on my XP machine where I have Japanese enabled and it's not displaying correctly. The page had a character encoding of UTF-8, which should be fine, but it's possible their web host has a misconfiguration that is trying to use another encoding, or when the owner uploaded the file something when awry. In any case, at least for that site it's not your machine's fault. It could be similar with the RAR files. Often if that file gets passed through someone who doesn't have Japanese enabled the characters will become corrupt like you're seeing. Again, not much you can do.

^ I agree with your assessment. Best thing you can do is contact the site admin and let them know.

Also, to the OP, thanks for the site. It looks pretty interesting and would be useful for keeping up with my Japanese. Now, if only the text was actually Japanese...

I actually think I will twitter the site owner.

Ah I see. Well thanks anyway for helping clear it up guys. Enjoy the site Calderone.

 

[Serio0]

hmm, this is 12 years later, but it just happened here (1996 nintendo.co.jp theoldnet.com archive from wayback machine api) http://theoldnet.com/get?url=nintendo.co.jp&year=1994&scripts=false&decode=false so, is this happening for anyone else 12 years later?