CORRUPTED FONTS IN SOME WEB PAGES

Question

Level 1

44 points

CORRUPTED FONTS IN SOME WEB PAGES

OK.
So, I just used up all my cell phone money to call APPLE CARE USA, since I am in India and APPLE INDIA could NOT help much, but we got cut off twice and I have no more money in my cell phone.

I have a MACBOOK PRO, early 2008 edition, running Leopard 5.5. I am using only 1/2 of my hard drive and have 4 GIG's RAM. I acquired this computer in July , so it is very new.
I use Safari as my main browser.

About 3 weeks ago, I noticed my computer started up slower than usual. Then I noticed "?" in Yahoo.com and a few other web pages where photos were supposed to be. It then cleared for a while. Then I activated a few fonts that my friend gave me and put them into my fonts folder.
About 2 weeks ago, I started getting corrupted fonts on various web pages, like Yahoo.com, Craigslist, a few others. I was getting small upside down letters next to normal ones and "v" floating above letters, upside down letters, etc... Also, font style changes from normal to broken corrupted script. I could hardly read the page. In writing emails, when I would use "delete" to delete some words and back up the sentence to meet the previous one, the font SIZE would drop down to 8 in everything past the deleted area. This has continued to this moment.

I called Apple Care and we went thru the whole sequence of throwing away "caches", etc.... until we just trashed the whole Safari and downloaded the new one (mine was up to date, by the way.). I also had previously gone thru my whole FONT files and put them all thru FONT DOCTOR. Anything not good was trashed. I went thru and threw away the new fonts I put in also and ran all my fonts thru FONT BOOK again. So, all the fonts are good and there is a fresh Safari. At this point, I ran out of cell phone time.

Now what is wrong. the corruption is still there. Not only in Safari, but also Firefox is giving me the same corruption.

I am wondering if I got a virus? Is it possible? I do use my "stick" at the local internet cafe to download my files for printing on their printer and also at the photo/printing place to print posters.

What could be the problem?
I have never had this problem before, and I used my G4 Powerbook exclusively in INdia for 4 years and did not have this.

Can anyone help in this?

MACBOOK PRO 15", Mac OS X (10.5.5), 4 GIG Ram

Posted on Nov 16, 2008 8:18 AM

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Answer 1

Paul4900

Level 2

350 points

Nov 16, 2008 9:39 AM in response to Chandidevi

Okay, I can't resist being a grammar Nazi, but cut down on the Caps Lock in some places. It's considered yelling, and it's a pretty small room, we can hear you anyway 🙂

Anyway, it looks like you're going to have to do an Archive and Install of OS X. (I do it all the time, it only takes about two hours, and nothing's really different from before except for what's listed.)

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Answer 2

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Nov 16, 2008 2:06 PM in response to Chandidevi

Chandi --
You have a font conflict, and an A&I will not solve that.

Quit Safari.
Take this file to the trash, but do NOT delete. Just keep it there, OK?
HD>Users>YourName>Library>Fonts.
Restart your Mac, then restart Safari.
Let us know how it is then, OK?
Depending on your results, we'll guide you with what to do with the Users Fonts.

I'm assuming you have not been fooling with the SYSTEM fonts.
Is that correct??

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Answer 3

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 16, 2008 11:23 PM in response to TildeBee

OK...
First of all, I am sorry about the caps! I just wanted the obvious and important things highlighted.

Before I A&I, I want to follow this reply from Bee.

Secondly, I am not clear about System fonts and User fonts?
I do understand. I have not messed with my System fonts, as far as I know. What could I do?

MY friend gave me a whole suitcase of fonts, which are in my user folder as a separate folder.
I picked out about 10 font families and added them to my user fonts, I assume. I think I threw them into Font Book under "all fonts". These fonts were mostly "thingies" windings, bar codes, but there were a few normal alphabet fonts. When this started happening, I disabled all those fonts, and finally threw them away. During this time, I have checked all the fonts thru Font Doctor. There is no problems. All checked out fine.

This lead me to believe that I picked something up.

However, font conflict also sounds feasible.

I will do this and write back.

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Answer 4

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 16, 2008 11:33 PM in response to TildeBee

Yes!
You are right.
I put the Folder in the Trash.
My Yahoo opens and the pictures show again, no more ?
Also Craigslist is normal.
And the other site where the fonts transferred into broken script is also normal.
Now what do I do?
The Font folder is in the Trash.
And we are 12+ hours time difference.

I await your reply.
Thank you.

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Answer 5

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Nov 17, 2008 2:36 AM in response to Chandidevi

I just wanted to mention that some fonts can cause havoc on a Mac. These include:

Helvetica Fractions, Times Phonetic and Alien.

so if you find those, delete them at once!

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,336 points

Nov 17, 2008 5:41 AM in response to Chandidevi

I was getting small upside down letters next to normal ones and "v" floating above letters, upside down letters, etc

Upside down letters often mean you have Times Phonetic installed. Trash it.

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Answer 7

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 17, 2008 8:19 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

OK
So, the fonts are still, in the trash.
I will have to take them out to do this.
So, I am assuming that I put them back in the same place to do this.
Since it is night time here and I may not hear from you for another 12 hours, I will do this.

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Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,336 points

Nov 17, 2008 8:23 AM in response to Chandidevi

So, the fonts are still, in the trash.
I will have to take them out to do this.

I suggested you trash Times Phonetic. If it is already in the trash, why would you take it out? Just get rid of it.

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Answer 9

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 17, 2008 9:01 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi
OK.
SO I did have Times phonetic, Times phonetic alt, Times phoIPA.
I trashed them.
I also had HelveFra, Bold, Helvetica Fractions - AFM Files, which were all fractions and one was normal alphabet. But, I also trashed them.
I do not have Alien.

When I looked at Times phonetic, it looked just like the corrupted fonts.
But since Klaus also mentioned Helvitica, I also trashed them.

All the fonts were in the trash.
I had to take them out to see if Times was in there and I did.

Now I put the fonts back in the font folder and the 3 web sites that I was checking this on are all fine and normal.

So, thank you, all.
And thanks for the heads up on those 3 fonts.
It appears it was that.

chandi

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Answer 10

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 17, 2008 9:14 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom,
Bee suggested I trash, but not delete, all my user fonts in order to see if it was a font conflict. So, I did. And when you wrote, I was still waiting to hear what to do with all the fonts in the trash, since it was, infact, a font conflict.
After yours and Klaus's reply, I took them out and put them all back in the font folder and looked for the specific fonts, which were there, and trashed and deleted them.

It appears my problem is fixed.

Thank you!!

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Answer 11

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 17, 2008 10:53 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

OK...
Still a little problem.
In hotmail, when I write an email and delete a word or sentence or use apple/control x and then control v to add the words into a sentence , all the words after the addition of control v goes into super small font size.

COuld this be only Hotmail? Or might this still have something to do with Safari??

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Answer 12

Nov 17, 2008 11:21 AM in response to Chandidevi

There seems to be a solution to the same issue you're reporting, posted here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1385285

I just downloaded FontNuke myself. Hopefully it works.

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Answer 13

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 17, 2008 11:20 PM in response to Steve Tsuida

Thanks Steve,

My Safari, also quits at times.

Amazing, but part of the problem has returned.
I shut down my mac for the night and just started it again, and I am having ??? in the photos places in Yahoo, again.
So something is repeating itself in my computer.
The websites I check for the font problem are still normal, but this is how the problem started in the first place.

I will follow Hawaiian Starman's instructions. I am surprised that Font Doctor did NOT remove all my dups in the first place. it did others.
I have a whole Font suitcase from a friend, which isn't activated, but is in my computer, and I am sure I have lots of dups.

OK...

I hope the rest of the guys read this.
Could there be a" worm" or something "malicious" in this new computer?

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Answer 14

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 17, 2008 11:50 PM in response to Chandidevi

I followed HAwaiin Starman's suggestion of resolving dups and validating fonts in Font Book:

I have 45 "minor problems" in my Font Validation. Yellow caution signs.
Most are duplicates. A few "name" table usability, and one "kern" table structure and contents.

What should I do?

Starman or anyone?

I am getting ???? in my Yahoo pages where the photos go, again. This is how the corruption started before.

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Answer 15

Chandidevi Author

Level 1

44 points

Nov 18, 2008 1:10 AM in response to Chandidevi

OK
So I went and deleted all the "Warnings" in the font verification.
Restarted my computer.
Now I am getting a correct Yahoo page again.
I hope this is all and it's finished now.

Thank you to all of you.

Oh, I guess I should now use Font Nuke, so this doesn't happen again.
Will update after usage.

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