Text not displaying correctly in Flash Player?

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Level 1

8 points

Text not displaying correctly in Flash Player?

Upgraded to Snow Leopard yesterday and I've been having problems with the Flash Player, not just in Safari but in Firefox as well. I did some searching and saw that some people are having issues with flash slowing down their computer and overloading the processors, but my problem is a little more peculiar and I haven't seen it mentioned. On multiple sites, there are things not displaying correctly for me within the flash player, and it all has to do with text.

For example if you go to the page:
http://www.chipotle.com/#/flash/My-Chipotle-Contest
I don't see the text on the page displayed at all: http://homepage.mac.com/osxpert/chipotlescreenshot.png

Or on youtube, when text boxes are supposed to be overlayed on videos, I just see the boxes without the text inside: http://homepage.mac.com/osxpert/youtubescreenshot.png

The same is true with looking up stock on google, etc, etc etc. I've uninstalled/reinstalled flash and rebooted my computer multiple times and nothing seems to change it. Its obvious not the most critical problem in the world, but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas.

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 1, 2009 10:14 AM

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Answer 1

OSXpert Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 1, 2009 6:46 PM in response to OSXpert

I created a new user account on the computer and Flash works properly on that, so it must be some preference on my specific user...

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Answer 2

Sep 1, 2009 7:04 PM in response to OSXpert

doesn't that usually indicate a problem with .plist's?

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Answer 3

OSXpert Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 1, 2009 7:20 PM in response to OSXpert

I actually copied all my plists over to the test account and everything still seems to work fine over there, so I'm not sure.

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Answer 4

Sep 15, 2009 1:04 PM in response to OSXpert

Spot on solution !

No idea why or how to transfer my setup over to the new account but I can at least use a flash application I've used for ages.

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Answer 5

Oct 3, 2009 7:39 PM in response to Graham Outterside

I, too, am having the same issue, but usually with completely garbled characters in Flash instead of missing text. And creating a new user eliminated the problem... but what's the best way to copy everything about one users settings to a new user?

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Answer 6

Nov 11, 2009 8:51 PM in response to OSXpert

I'm having the same problem as the original poster. Flash works fine in a new user account. I'd read somewhere that Flip4Mac was the cause, but I don't think that's true: Flip4Mac is installed for my new test user account and I don't see the Flash problem. Anyone have any other ideas?

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Answer 7

Nov 11, 2009 8:55 PM in response to OSXpert

Might want to check fonts installed in your user folder (userfolder/library/fonts) and make sure there's no bad fonts in there (maybe use font book to check for baddies or dupes)

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Answer 8

Nov 11, 2009 9:57 PM in response to Gordon Nickel Nickel

Good idea, but that doesn't seem to be it. This is such a weird problem:

It affects every browser in one user account, but not the other, so it's not related to Safari-specific plugins like Click2Flash or CosmoPod, or Firefox-specific plugins like Firebug. The problem occurs in other apps that use the Flash plugin (like NetNewsWire).

It's not fixed by uninstalling and reinstalling Flash itself. It's not fixed by trashing every macromedia-related pref or .plist I can find. Sure would like to fix this!

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Answer 9

Nov 11, 2009 10:01 PM in response to OSXpert

Were you ever able to resolve this problem?

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Answer 10

Nov 11, 2009 10:09 PM in response to Andrew Otwell

An interesting additional twist: Google Street View also doesn't work in one user account, but does in a new one. THought this was strictly a text-display issue, but now I don't think it is.

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Answer 11

eassae

Level 1

6 points

Dec 8, 2009 4:21 PM in response to OSXpert

Anyone figure it out yet?

Message was edited by: eassae

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Answer 12

Dec 11, 2009 10:12 AM in response to eassae

Is there a solution to this problem. I've just bought a Mac mini and I'm having the exact same problem; I migrated all user files over from a previous Mac mini.

Thanks.

Jim

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Answer 13

bluthng

Level 1

0 points

Dec 13, 2009 7:32 PM in response to SlimJimScot

I solved my problem by deleting all my Fonts in UserLibraryFonts because they were duplicates from HD\Library\Fonts

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Answer 14

kadavy

Level 1

0 points

Dec 22, 2009 8:01 AM in response to bluthng

Great, tip, thanks! Here's what I did:

1. I first went into FontBook, selected all of the fonts and did an Edit < Resolve Duplicates.

That didn't seem to work, so I:

2. Removed all of the fonts from User/Library/Fonts and it was fixed. Really wanting to narrow it down, I re-added all of the fonts bit by bit, and the problem is fixed! I even restarted and it's still fixed.

It didn't make sense why that second step would have fixed it, so that's why I even mention the first one.

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Answer 15

PaoloS

Level 1

0 points

Dec 23, 2009 12:42 PM in response to OSXpert

Thanks kadavy for the solution!

Having exactly the same problem, I spent a considerable time trying to figure out how to solve it, also contacting Adobe technical support.

One slight difference with respect to kadavy's solution:

1. Start Font Book
2. select Edit -> Select Duplicated Fonts (instead of all fonts)
3. select Edit -> Resolve Duplicates

In my case it worked without having to delete/re-add fonts one by one.

One more thing: I would discourage anybody from creating fictitious new users because moving/copying the original home dir with all its contents under the new user home would inevitably recreate the same situation (duplicated fonts).

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