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Text Encoding / Decoding problem (with PICS) help!

N

Neoraven

macrumors member
Original poster
I've recently run into an interesting issue:

From time to time (in some programs) and all the time (in others), my computer seems to be translating characters a little oddly. The only way to explain it is with a picture:
Picture1-13.jpg


The way the text pops up is consistent, perfectly mapped, and will from occasion do it on webpages / google docs, etc... But only on Adium 100% of the time. The picture is of my messaging myself if it wasn't apparent 🙂

Thanks, let me know if you can think of any clues
 
One thing you could test is make a new user account in System Preferences, log into that account and test the same apps and see if it happens there.

That would isolate whether the issue is system wide, or local to your account.
 
It's only on my account it would seem. Where do I go to look for text formatting, system wide?
 
That is VERY odd! First thing I'd check is your International settings in System Preferences. That preference pane is called Language & Text in Snow Leopard, though. Make sure you check all the tabs - there's a bunch of settings, and if they're mismatched (like having the system language set to English USA and the format set to Korean) weird things can happen.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
That is VERY odd! First thing I'd check is your International settings in System Preferences. That preference pane is called Language & Text in Snow Leopard, though. Make sure you check all the tabs - there's a bunch of settings, and if they're mismatched (like having the system language set to English USA and the format set to Korean) weird things can happen.
Click to expand...

Language is set to English, and the format is set to United States. Everything seems to check out, and I am also able to write Chinese with no problems in Adium so it seems specific to the rendering of english fonts
 
Does it only happen in Adium to incoming messages, or outgoing or both? You might want to play with the Adium font settings.
 
kainjow said:
Does it only happen in Adium to incoming messages, or outgoing or both? You might want to play with the Adium font settings.
Click to expand...

I think it's safe to rule out Adium as the culprit for a few reasons:

1) The fonts all pan out in the settings
2) It happens to a few sites in Chrome
3) It just happened to a downloaded .doc opened with M$ Word

In terms of how I'm affected with it in Adium, as the picture show's it will type out fine, and the receiver will receive it fine, but when it goes up to show what I sent, to me it looks weird, but to them it looks fine. It also show's this way in the chat history. I also ruled out encryption as the source, I made sure it was disabled.

Also in word, I just highlighted everything and changed the font to times and it worked fine, but it initially imported in the messed up font which I know is wrong. So is there a default font somewhere in mac os x for reading things that I can edit/check/fix?
 
Could be, of all things, a bad font cache somewhere. There are plenty of tools for clearing your font caches, but the one I recommend is OnyX.
 
If it is only your account:

1. Move all fonts from ~/Library/Fonts to somewhere else (~/Desktop/Fonts or something).

2. Clear font caches.

3. Reboot or Log out

4. Report back
 
calderone said:
If it is only your account:

1. Move all fonts from ~/Library/Fonts to somewhere else (~/Desktop/Fonts or something).

2. Clear font caches.

3. Reboot or Log out

4. Report back
Click to expand...

Okay, it worked and fixed the problem. But what do I do with the fonts now? Put them back? And what exactly was/is the problem? If the problem lies in the fonts, how do I go about isolating the mistake?

Thank you 🙂
 
Neoraven said:
Okay, it worked and fixed the problem. But what do I do with the fonts now? Put them back? And what exactly was/is the problem? If the problem lies in the fonts, how do I go about isolating the mistake?

Thank you 🙂
Click to expand...
Similar process - put half the fonts back. Clear caches. Reboot. Does the problem return? If it does, then the troublesome font is in that set. Otherwise, repeat the test with the other half. Divide whichever half is problematic into 2 again. Repeat the previous steps until you've isolated the offending font file.

EDIT: Anyone remember Mac OS 9 extension conflicts, and the arduous process of troubleshooting them - even with a tool like Conflict Catcher it still took many, many reboots to diagnose such a problem and find the two extensions that were clashing. This process is very similar, except it involves fonts instead of extensions.
 
I don't recommend the above technique as it requires more work than necessary.

The problem is that you likely have a corrupt font.

I would start with having Font Book scan that folder:

1. Open Font Book
2. Click File > Validate Font
3. Choose the folder where you put the fonts

Font Book will check the integrity of the fonts in that folder, if there are problems it will produce warnings and/or errors.

If you have any warnings or errors, do not move those fonts back. You can do this manually or with the Font Validation window:

1. From the drop down select "No Warnings or Errors"
2. Check "Select All Font"
3. Install Checked

I would probably do this manually though, so you can keep track of which ones were bad and put them somewhere else. At that point you would have to go out and find a new copy of that font.
 
calderone said:
I don't recommend the above technique as it requires more work than necessary.

The problem is that you likely have a corrupt font.

I would start with having Font Book scan that folder:

1. Open Font Book
2. Click File > Validate Font
3. Choose the folder where you put the fonts

Font Book will check the integrity of the fonts in that folder, if there are problems it will produce warnings and/or errors.

If you have any warnings or errors, do not move those fonts back. You can do this manually or with the Font Validation window:

1. From the drop down select "No Warnings or Errors"
2. Check "Select All Font"
3. Install Checked

I would probably do this manually though, so you can keep track of which ones were bad and put them somewhere else. At that point you would have to go out and find a new copy of that font.
Click to expand...
Thank you calderone - I've never ran into font problems on Mac OS X so I've never had to do this. I wasn't aware that Font Book could do that.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Thank you calderone - I've never ran into font problems on Mac OS X so I've never had to do this. I wasn't aware that Font Book could do that.
Click to expand...

No problem, I didn't mean to be rude there. It would just take a long time to solve the problem.

There are also some other tools for this like: FontDoctor, FontExplorerX and I am sure there are some free ones.
 
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