Safari 5 Font Rendering Problem

Question

Safari 5 Font Rendering Problem

Since installing Safari 5, I am seeing certain websites where the body text appears to have broken sub-pixel antialiasing. To confuse matters further, this problem can show in text on one part of a page, but not in others.

Here is an example of what I see: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/08/chinainternetstrategy/

Here's a screenshot of the problem, with Safari 5 on the left and Chrome on the right (which doesn't have the problem - weird, I know; they're both WebKit browsers!)

http://yfrog.com/esscreenshot20100608at181p (click the image to view it full-sized)

I've verified all my fonts and resolved all my duplicates.

27" Aluminium iMac (2.66GHz i5, 4GB RAM), Mac OS X (10.6.3), Other computer: 13" 1.6GHz MacBook

Posted on Jun 12, 2010 7:10 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 12, 2010 8:11 AM in response to Peter Whysall

HI Peter,

Try this...

Go to ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari. Move the "cache.db" file to the Trash. Relaunch Safari.

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

Jun 12, 2010 8:43 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

Thanks for replying, Carolyn.

Completely clobbering ~/Library/Caches makes no difference.

I've also run AppleJack and told it to clean up the system caches and virtual memory (industrial-grade straw-clutching, I know) and no dice.

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Answer 3

Jun 12, 2010 8:54 AM in response to Peter Whysall

Try logging into another user account and verify it if happens there.

I checked that site with an HTML validator... see here: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F2010%2F06 %2F08%2Fchinainternetstrategy%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

They are using UTF-8 encoding.

Try this... from the Safari Menu Bar click Safari/Preferences then select the Appearance tab. Click the pop up menu bottom of that pane and select: UTF-8 Relaunch Safari and see if that makes a difference.

🙂

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Answer 4

Jun 12, 2010 9:01 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

I tried both of those things and unfortunately, they don't change anything. At least we know the problem is system-wide and not related to encodings (I tried changing to a few different options, to see if it made it better. It didn't).

However!

Due to the way the page loads, I can see the body text before the page is done loading. And it's fine right up until the page is done loading, at which point it goes nasty.

How peculiar!

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Answer 5

Jun 12, 2010 9:05 AM in response to Peter Whysall

HI,

I tried both of those things and unfortunately, they don't change anything. At least we know the problem is system-wide and not related to encodings

Process of elimination 😉

Try booting in Safe Mode

What is Safe Mode

Safe Mode takes a little longer to boot into. You will see: Safe Mode in red on the login window... once you are booted into Safe Mode go to the Apple Menu/Restart.

Launch Safari.....

🙂

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Answer 6

3zero2

Level 1

0 points

Jun 12, 2010 12:30 PM in response to Peter Whysall

i am experiencing the same issue. Extensions are turned off so that is not the problem either.

the images are taken from www.timesofmalta.com

Blurred - http://imgur.com/f99LC.png
OK - http://imgur.com/PeNE8.png

They are both in the same Safari 5. First time I load the page I get the blurred version. I then reload and get the OK version. Any suggestions?

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Answer 7

Jun 12, 2010 4:20 PM in response to 3zero2

Just to let you guys know, it has something to do with Flash plugin.
Once Flash plugin is removed, Safari 5 renders fonts correctly.

However, I do not want to give an impression that Flash is the culprit.
More likely, Safari 5's own problem.

I feel like Safari 5 was hastily done to meet the dead line for WWDC 2010.

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Answer 8

Jun 13, 2010 3:02 AM in response to Minsoo Kim

Yep, uninstalling Flash fixes the problem.

I've identified the Flash object that, on the The Register page in question, causes it - it's the MicroBite player on the right-hand side.

If I open Web Inspector and navigate to and delete that node, the main body text is rendered correctly.

Time to start updating GlimmerBlocker rules. I only really need Flash to play a few games, so I might just block all Flash and whitelist the exceptions.

Many thanks.

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Answer 9

bspire

Level 1

0 points

Jun 25, 2010 9:50 AM in response to Peter Whysall

I do also have this problem with Flash and Safari 5. Uninstalling Flash also solves the problem for me. Did you report this bug to Adobe?

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Answer 10

Jun 29, 2010 5:20 PM in response to bspire

Seeing it here too. Been trying to figure out why Google Reader has had fonts that look just fine, and then after a while reading, it looks like crap. Starts happening as soon as a flash video is embedded in the story.

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Answer 11

micliz

Level 1

0 points

Jul 8, 2010 9:57 PM in response to Peter Whysall

This makes me wonder if it's not done on purpose... With all the Flash hate from Apple and the upcoming HTML5 push... Perhaps a planted reason for us Mac folk to start hating on Flash eh?

What do you think?

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