kmosx3: OSX 10.3 (Panther) Mysterious Crashes

Mysterious crashes, freezes, hangups, etc.. Running Repair Permissions or a disk repair utility shows no problems.
COULD BE FONT RELATED

Font Book Issues and Font related issues and work arounds.
SYMPTOMS: (Font book and poor Font Management practices can cause hangs, freezes, and other problems in iChat, Mail, Address Book, Installer, etc..)
Related Problems are Blank Emails, Installer window shows no text and spinning beachball, programs mysteriously crashing or quiting, etc

Ok found a small glitch in Fontbook that can cause major havoc. When you install a Font into Font book the default preference is "for me only" when the default should be changed to "for all users of this computer".
The reason is this. When you install fonts with the "for me only" selected and then go and Resolve duplicates. Sometimes for some reason some applications do not "see" active fonts UNLESS FONT BOOK is running. The way you can tell if it is this bug causing the problem is to do this. Click on either Mail or Address Book if it hangs at startup or never opens. Force quit it and open Font Book. After Font book launches then launch Mail or address book or any application that is misbehaving. If they open fine with FONT BOOK running then you installed the Font(s) with the "for me only" selection (can be changed under preferences). Or you could have too many FONTS active.
What is happening is Font book is managing the fonts and is for some reason the system does not see the font as "on" for some applications unless Font book is running. The really weird thing is most other applications see the font and run just fine even with font book not running. Hence the difficulty in narrowing down this "bug".

WORK AROUNDS
One is to change your preferences in Font book to default to "for all users of this computer" to prevent this problem when installing fonts in the future.
2. Go to your home directory. (HD/USERS/your user name/)
In your home directory go to Library Folder
Go to the Fonts folder.
Select all (apple +a) and hit copy (apple +c) do NOT DRAG THEM OUT or you could have major problems!
then go to your hard drive (HD/LIBRARY/FONTS) (You should see sytem folder, users folder, etc...) go to the library folder. go to fonts folder. Select all. then hit Paste (apple + v) if it asks you if you want to replace a font say yes to all).
Ok after all your fonts have been "pasted" into the main library folder. Go back to your home folder. go to your Home library folder. Go to the fonts folder. Select all and drag these to the trash. (DO NOT TOUCH THE FONTS FOLDER IN THE SYSTEM FOLDER)
Then restart you computer.
This fixes a lot of problems related to Font book and other apple applications that have been mysteriously hanging, freezing, crashing, or just plain old not working correctly. The reason is the default For Me Only puts the fonts in your HOME library fonts folder. After trial and error I have found that using the Main Library (All Users can see) Fonts folder solves a whole slew of glitches.

Another related problem is this. TOO MANY FONTS ACTIVE.
MAC OSX can handle an unlimited number of active Fonts BUT most applications cannot. Examples are PHOTOSHOP shows fonts only up to a certain point. Text Edit does NOT show fonts when you select Show Fonts, Mail acts very sluggish, freezes, or shows blank emails, etc. iChat does not show what you have typed in a chat window, etc..

Most of the "bugs" in panther are not Panther but are FONT related issues. Corrupt Fonts, Too many Active Fonts, Duplicate Fonts, and other forms of poor Font Management can cause major problems in the operation of your computer.

There are a few workarounds for this related problem.
(1) If you have say more than 50 Fonts I recommend a Panther Compatible FONT MANAGEMENT Program. Such as Extensis SUITCASE X1 (ver 11.0.2)
http://www.extensis.com
Suitcase X11 (ver 11.0.2) is Panther Compatible as of this writing

Font Reserve
http://www.diamondsoft.com
(As of this writing Font reserve is NOT compatible with Panther. It is compatible with Jaguar and the company should have a Panther Patch out shortly. Contact Diamond Soft for any questions

A font management program such as these allow for Auto Activation which is a feature FONT BOOK does not have at this writing.
This will allow you to keep extra fonts turned off until they are needed and will auto activate them in most programs.
Also Both of these programs have certain features for handling SYSTEM FONTS, Font Duplication, Font Corruption, Font ID Conflicts, etc (see software documentation or contact Manufacturer for more details before purchasing any program)

(2) If you do not wish to purchase a FONT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM you still can use FONT BOOK. You will just have to Manually turn Fonts ON and OFF. Manually Resolve Duplicates (Fonts with bullets beside their names), And Manually Trouble Shoot Corrupt Fonts.
I would recommend not having more 50 Fonts active at one time. The more Fonts that are active. The better your chances are suffer poor application response. ex. Sluggish programs, erratic behavior in applications, mysterious crashes, etc... and a lot of active fonts can make it more difficult to narrow down a corrupt Font.
You can trouble shoot Corrupt Fonts by turning off Fonts and seeing if a problems occurs. If you notice that every time you have a certain Font active, you suffer problems, then you may have a corrupt Font. Disable it or reinstall it.
I found through many years of experience that Fonts cause more than 80% of computer related problems. They are the hardest to nail down because most of the time you cannot replicate the problem because the font related problems can be erratic at best.
Easiest way to troubleshoot a MAJOR PROBLEM is this. Clean install the operating system. DO NOT install any third party applications. (Third party applications can install fonts during the install process). Try the system out (without any 3rd party hardware). If the system runs fine with no problems. Then Install just your third party software (Applications NOT 3rd party Fonts) . Try the system out. If no problems come about then Install your 3rd party hardware. Try the system out. If you still have no problems then start installing your 3rd party Fonts. If you then start suffering problems you may either have (a) too many fonts active. (b) a corrupt font or fonts (c) font conflict.

(1) Make sure you do not have many Fonts active.....I recommend no more than 50 (Always remember to disable a font if you aren't using it.)
(2) Manually try turning off certain fonts and see if you have any problems. (Could be a corrupt Font)
(3) If you see a bullet (in FONT BOOK) beside the font name then highlight the FONT NAME. Go under the EDIT MENU. Go to RESOLVE DUPLICATES. Then make sure the bullet disappears (Bullet denotes Font Duplicate)

The four places PANTHER can see fonts are

HD/SYSTEM FOLDER (classic os9)/FONTS
HD/LIBRARY/FONTS
HD/SYSTEM/FONTS (do not mess with this folder!)
HD/USERS/your user name/LIBRARY/FONTS

If you have any further questions or need assistance in proceeding with these suggestions please feel free to email me
thepigeon@mac.com

DISCLAIMER:
Everything I have said is of my own opinion. It does not represent APPLE or any other company in any way. Only attempt any of these suggestions at your own risk. Any misconceptions, misinformation, misspellings, or misdirections are my own. Companies I have mentioned are the ones current ones I know about. There could be other applications that can be purchased from other vendors. Please talk to software manufacturer(s) for details on compatibility, features, etc before purchasing any suggested software.