Fonts garbled in Safari after Lion Upgrade

Question

Fonts garbled in Safari after Lion Upgrade

After upgrading to Lion, Safari seems unable to display certain webpages (such as google.com) correctly. The fonts appear as squares instead of letters. Pertinent to this, it warrants mentioning that I use FontAgent Pro 4.2 to manage my fonts. I've activated every copy of Helvetica and Arial I have (one at a time, not at once) and still no luck. I can't figure out what font is causing this problem. Anyone else having this problem or know of a fix?

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7), 2.2 HGz i7 8GB 250GB SSD

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 2:09 PM

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Answer 1

Gary P

Level 4

1,418 points

Jul 20, 2011 2:13 PM in response to Christopher Pressey

Have you unchecked "Manage System Fonts" in FontAgent Pro's preferences>General?

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Answer 2

Jul 20, 2011 4:03 PM in response to Gary P

Hmm the plot, she thicken... just tried that and I don't have sufficient permissions to do so. (Odd, because I'm the only user - however this is a new MBP as of last week and I used Time Machine to restore from my previous MBP...)

Disk Utility > Repair Permissions had no effect.

Any thoughts on that? 🙂

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Answer 3

Gary P

Level 4

1,418 points

Jul 20, 2011 4:31 PM in response to Christopher Pressey

Sorry, I have nothing useful to add. I don't know why you can't access that setting.

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Answer 4

soxdave

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 6:31 AM in response to Christopher Pressey

Hi Chris -

I'm having the same issue and tried validating all font files and clearing the font cache, and it isn't working... I've heard of this before and it sounds like a duplicate font issue, but I can't find the duplicate font!

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Answer 5

Jul 21, 2011 7:59 AM in response to Christopher Pressey

I'm going to open a ticket with the Font Agent folks and see if they aren't able to shed some light on this -- I'll post back any findings...

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Answer 6

soxdave

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 8:01 AM in response to Christopher Pressey

thanks. my guess is that it's a duplicate or corrupt font that we're just not catching.

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Answer 7

Jul 21, 2011 8:27 AM in response to soxdave

OK - Font Agent Pro is aware of the issue (as of today) and they're working on a fix. In the meantime, and this worked for me, they say to:

1) Quit Safari

2) Open FA Pro

3) Deactive ALL fonts in FA Pro

4) Launch Safari.

This forces Safari to use only the fonts that were included with the Lion install.

As you reactivate fonts, note which one(s) cause the problem to reoccur and consider not activating that font/those fonts until a solution is released.

They're expecting a fix this week.

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Answer 8

CleefMon

Level 1

69 points

Jul 21, 2011 9:15 AM in response to Christopher Pressey

Thanks, Chris. I've been struggling with this since yesterday. Tried all kinds of things: Onxy to clear caches; deleting Safari prefs, reboots. Yours is the only solution that has worked for me. I hope FAP is updated soon.

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Answer 9

soxdave

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 9:25 AM in response to Christopher Pressey

What I've found to work is to also go into the prefs of FAPro and turn off the autoactivation for everything but adobe apps and the reactivate at startup for the time being.

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Answer 10

Jul 25, 2011 3:05 PM in response to Christopher Pressey

I just received an email from Insider Software - they're releasing a fix for the System Fonts management issue tomorrow.

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Answer 11

Jul 27, 2011 4:16 PM in response to Christopher Pressey

Having the same issues .. and still no fix.. I've emailed Insider Software for FAB, with little response. It's very frustrating as it carrying through to the adobe cs5 suite. I get it work with Adobe, then safari and other browsers get screwed up. I then get it to work for safari, and then Adobe suite gets screwed up. Productivity is heavily slowed. *****

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Answer 12

Jul 27, 2011 5:40 PM in response to idcreative

When I posted above about Insder support, I'd called their support and got through immediately and spoke with Erik - He provided a pre-release link to me for the 4.2.2 fix - the link is:

http://svn.insidersoftware.com/software/4202_FAP4_Demo.tgz

He'd told me he was releasing it on the 25th, but it hasn't been posted yet.

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Answer 13

StormZ

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2011 12:41 PM in response to Christopher Pressey

Experienced the same problem today. Started when I got the Lion upgrade. Really frustrating as I need to type this comment in another software. Anything I type in the web browser is coming up as garbled (squares with a letter in the middle). Also, most websites appear garbled. If I open files in other softwares, I get a strange font. Can’t do any work because I can’t read anything. Don’t know about FontAgent Pro. I’m using Suitcase Fusion 3...just did an update but still same problem.

Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this and if there is a solution?

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Answer 14

Jul 28, 2011 12:46 PM in response to StormZ

Hi Stormz -

The cause is an incorrect/conflicting font that's being auto activated by Suitcase / Font Agent Pro / Etc. which is conflicting with (or different than) what Safari is "expecting" to find. So Safari freaks out and shows squares.

I'd suggest contacting Extensis Support to see if they have an upgrade that makes the font management compatible with Lion. I'm sure you're not the first user with Suitcase to run into this problem! In the meantime, go into Suitcase and deactivate ALL fonts, quit safair, relaunch safari and it should be good. Be careful with your auto-activation in Suitcase in the meantime. If you notice the squares again, repeat the above process until an upgrade is released to Suitcase to address the issue.

I'm sorry I can't be much help beyond that.

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Answer 15

StormZ

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2011 1:08 PM in response to Christopher Pressey

Hi Christopher,

Extensis released an update today and I installed it before tackling the forum. I still had the same problem. Anyhow, I will take your advice and deactivate all fonts. If not all, I hope that it will solve some of my font issues until I can point out the culprit. Thanks for your help!

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