Q: Font problems after 10.6.7

I work for a small desktop publishing company that contracts out to bigger educational publishers. We are also having this problem. Luckily we only have two computers with 10.6.7

I have spent a long while reading this thread and getting an understanding of what the problem is. Am I correct in summarizing this: The only solution at this time is to downgrade to 10.6.6

Is that correct? I just want to make sure I am following this very long thread

Thank you to everyone who is posting and spending so many hours to help clarify this issue.

The only solution at this time is to downgrade to 10.6.6.

To ensure you will not have problems with OpenType PostScript fonts, yes, that is the only sure solution to cover all printing methods.

You could still produce working PDF files out of the Adobe apps and Quark, but you still wouldn't have much luck printing them to a PostScript printer or RIP.

WTH?

Unembedding fonts?
Does apple even test their updates?

I've been using CombinePDFs for a couple years without a problem.
Now with 10.6.7 I get errors "Cannot extract the embedded font "LBPHU+UniversLTStd-BoldNcObl"

Now I gotta spend a couple hours going back to 10.6, thanks a bunch Apple.

Was surely hoping we'd see a true solution (either 10.6.8 or a 10.6.7 Font Issue Addenda) posted by this time. About the only thing that works for me is doing a restart into Single User Mode (?), running Applejack (to clear the font caches), and then trying to get some work done. If I do this every few hours, I'm not bogged down by the problem.

Message was edited by: coreworksnet

Was surely hoping we'd see a true solution (either 10.6.8 or a 10.6.7 Font Issue Addenda) posted by this time.

Me too. It's a pervasive issue, the kind which Apple usually trounces on pretty quickly. There's no doubt they know about it. etrosoft and I have both filed bug reports at the Developer's site, as I'm sure others have. I also noted the issue to the hosts almost from the beginning. And they normally move such issues up the line to make sure the problem is known to those who can do something about it.

Kurt Lang wrote:
It's a pervasive issue, the kind which Apple usually trounces on pretty quickly. There's no doubt they know about it. etrosoft and I have both filed bug reports at the Developer's site, as I'm sure others have.

I hate to be the one to keep mentioning it, but even just considering only your & etrosoft's descriptions of the problem & how to reproduce it, the two do not seem to be completely in agreement. Considering the wider range of reports, things get much more complicated in a hurry, & they cannot all be due to user error or lack of clarity in their descriptions. For instance, for some the problem is intermittent, or can be cleared at least temporarily by emptying caches, or affects only some OT PS fonts. For others, none of these things are true.

Maybe all these things are somehow manifestations of the same basic bug. But until the "somehow" & all its implications are understood by Apple (probably with the cooperation of Adobe & possibly with other vendors) we won't see a fix. Otherwise, the fix is likely to break something else, & it might be even harder to fix that.

+"Was surely hoping we'd see a true solution..."+

I've narrowed it down to one module:
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/A TS.framework

Replacing the ATS.framework package, with one from a working 10.6.6 installation, relieves the
problem and PDF's work again as expected.

I haven't had very much time to test it, but so far it seems to be stable. I also do not own
very many of the required varieties of software needed to conduct a thorough test.

If any of you try it, please post back with the results.

Kj

Can you post a link to that file? Or let us know how to get that file? Considering we already blew out the old one! I am getting tired of having to re-start FCP each time the text goes nuts!

I think I have it sorted, I am DLing the combo Pack of 10.6.6, will step into it and see if I can find said file, thanks for the post, will report back if any good change happens!

after upgrade to 10.6.7 my Canon iPF500 print only line without any kind of font, from any app, Office text edit Autocad.
Down on 10.6.6?( working perfect on the second Mac with 10.6.6)

I found 2 ATS.framework files, one for Contents of MacOSXUpdCombo10.6.6.pkg and one for Contents of SUBaseSystem10.6.6.pkg. They both seem to be different files, one is 32meg and the other is 37.4 meg, does it matter which one I use KJK555?

R C-R wrote:
I hate to be the one to keep mentioning it, but even just considering only your & etrosoft's descriptions of the problem & how to reproduce it, the two do not seem to be completely in agreement. Considering the wider range of reports, things get much more complicated in a hurry, & they cannot all be due to user error or lack of clarity in their descriptions. For instance, for some the problem is intermittent, or can be cleared at least temporarily by emptying caches, or affects only some OT PS fonts. For others, none of these things are true.

Maybe all these things are somehow manifestations of the same basic bug. But until the "somehow" & all its implications are understood by Apple (probably with the cooperation of Adobe & possibly with other vendors) we won't see a fix. Otherwise, the fix is likely to break something else, & it might be even harder to fix that.

What I see is that I create an rtf file using one of the "accursed" fonts, and save a pdf file from it, then that particular pdf file is broken or works, and its behavior doesn't change. But I can take the exact same rtf file and write it out multiple times, without rebooting, and the different pdf files produced from the same rtf file will be broken in different ways.

This has all of the hallmarks of one of those "I'm using memory I don't actually own for something important, and some other process -- the one that really owns the memory -- is randomly sticking stuff in there" bugs.

If my guess is right, that kind of bug can be REALLY hard to find...

(I've been a programmer long enough that this is one of those occasions where I'm mostly just grateful that it's not MY fault!)

And one more thing, I noticed that in the framework you pointed out, there are a hellofalot more files than in the installers version, should I be concerned? Will that self populate back out again? I'm not that familiar with how frameworks work.

I was just generally noting that it has been reported. I wasn't trying to be specific about what exactly was wrong at all.

I'm encountering similar problems when incorporating Adobe Illustrator figures containing Myriad Pro into a pdf document using MacTex (Latex typesetting).

The workaround I found is to disable the font in Applications > Font Book; secondary click 'Myriad Pro' > Disable "Myriad Pro" Family.
Then rather than converting a eps file into pdf using MacTex save a pdf copy of the figure directly in Illustrator and type set using that, as the encoding in Adobe Illustrator seem to be unaffected.