reset Font Book in safe mode? Not in 10.5.8

Question

reset Font Book in safe mode? Not in 10.5.8

Trying to get my fonts under control, I dragged the ones in my User> Library>Fonts to the Library>Fonts folder but they still show up in Font Book when I click on the User icon.

Have read the instructions at jklstudio.com and thexlab.com for resetting the Font Book but it's not working with 10.5.8. There is no fb.db file. And starting in Safe Mode doesn't change anything. I didn't even lose my collections.

I've flirted with FontAgentPro but it only recognised half my fonts so help me get Font Book to work!

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Apr 22, 2010 1:36 AM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,954 points

Apr 22, 2010 6:41 AM in response to gillian holroyd

The file fb.db has to be there. It's part of Leopard. Are you sure you're looking in the correct location? It's in your user account at Home > Library > Application Support > Font Book.

This telling, though.

There is no fb.db file. And starting in Safe Mode doesn't change anything. I didn't even lose my collections.

A couple of things here. Is there more than one account on this Mac? Whichever one you login to from during a Safe Mode boot is the one which will be cleaned out. So if you logged into a different account in Safe Mode, then indeed nothing will change in your account when you boot again normally.

If there is only one account and nothing changed after a Safe Mode boot, then I would Repair Permissions on the drive and try again. If that doesn't work (and probably won't), then I think a reinstall of the OS is in order.

I've flirted with FontAgentPro but it only recognised half my fonts...

That again could either be a symptom of an OS that needs to be reinstalled, or, because FAP stores all activated fonts in it's own location, it could just be that there are multiple font conflicts between the stored fonts and those same fonts still in the various Fonts folders.

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Answer 2

Apr 22, 2010 4:23 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Thank you for responding.

This is odd. I did a search yesterday for fb.db and nothing came up and I couldn't find a Font Book folder in Application Support but now I can. So maybe the rebooting in Safe Mode (3 times!) had some effect after all.

I will try again and also repair permissions.

re FAP, I don't have multiple conflicts; I don't even have that many fonts and only a couple duplicates. These were bonafide ITC fonts and well, I didn't have the patience to read the whole manual so I just uninstalled it and went back to Font Book.

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Answer 3

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,954 points

Apr 22, 2010 4:33 PM in response to gillian holroyd

This is odd. I did a search yesterday for fb.db and nothing came up...

The only reason I can think of for that is if you hadn't run Font Book yet after doing a Safe Mode boot. I believe that file is not recreated until Font Book is launched.

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