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Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Safari in Lion not displaying site's header copy...

Like in http://www.tuaw.com/

same w/ this site:http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html All header fonts shown w/ black and cap "A" symbol.

It's shows as rows of "blocks" w/ a cap "A" inside, looks like letter blocks lined up.

Firefox shows it fine, and the othe rmacs in the house are showing that page fine in Lion's Safari....?

Insight appreaciated!

Thanks, T

Mac Pro (2010) Westmere 3.46 GHz(OWC upgrade), 24 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Dual displays: LaCie 730,Eizo CG241W,Wacom Intuos4

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 4:04 PM

71 replies

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 20, 2011 11:42 PM in response to TildeBee

Thanks Bee for weighing in on this.

I replaced LucindaGrande w/ one from my SnowLeopard spare boot drive, after the cache cleaning seems only temporary. It did not work.

Probelm was only 'fixed" again, by running Onyx, again.

I don't know, seems like safari is "effing" up here as well(after all, Firefox is NOT doing this)? The font that it is not reading for me, at times, is Myriad Pro, which is other wise working fine on my system. I can copy the "block A's" and thenpaste them into TextEdit, and there is the web site headline in Myriad Pro.

Jul 21, 2011 2:34 AM in response to SYT

Mee too ... as a web designer this is a bit of a problem as I can't test sites in Safari and instead having to use Chrome and Firefox to browse the web.

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 21, 2011 7:10 AM in response to Adrian Morley

Thanks Adrian,

So the list grows as well as the irony(Safari, and not 3rd party browsers, struggling). I guess I only really care as I MUCH prefer Safari....

Duke126

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 7:33 AM in response to Tim3308

Having the same problem as well, but the only thing that's worked has been deactiviating all my fonts except the system fonts... that said, doing this has left some web pages looking a little clunky. Like many others I've read about with this problem, I have a third-party font manager installed, FontExplorer X Pro 3.

One thing different for me though, Google Chrome was completely broken at first along with Safari - showing an "Awww shucks..." error. I had changed the default font for both Safari and Chrome though, and Chrome was already having font display issues under Snow Leopard because of FontExplorer X. Deactivating everything but system fonts got it running again, again looking a little clunky though.

Hopefully someone can find a permanent fix... and I do wonder if I'm missing new Lion fonts or older fonts after the upgrade to Lion - fonts that FontExplorer X blocked or deleted somehow. ON my first startup FontExplorer showed some missing system fonts but those warnings later vanished.

A restore of Snow Leopard and reinstall of Lion without FontExplorer may be an option to consider.

Jul 21, 2011 7:51 AM in response to Tim3308

I seem to be up and running in safari now (fingers crossed) following some clean up work using Font Book ...

... edit: no, seems to be back on some sites again. Very odd bug.

SYT

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 8:18 AM in response to Adrian Morley

I had to deactivate Extensis Fusion which I use as a font management tool. Once I did that everything was fine.

Of course I need to use this so it's not a great fix. Seems like Extensis needs to update the program for Lion anyway. If I delve deeper, I'm willing to bet the problem is with the duplication of the system fonts elsewhere in the user activated fonts folders.

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 21, 2011 8:21 AM in response to Duke126

Duke,

I have FontExplorer X pro 3.0 and it's the first placed I looked before posting.... I actually made sure it was releasing all font requests to Safari. I also have it installed on a MacBook pro, and Safari (Lion) there does not show the problems. Still, Firefox was not effected...?

Duke126

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 8:37 AM in response to Tim3308

Tim, interesting. Maybe it's just that users with font managers have a lot of fonts. What made me suspicious of FontExplorer was the number of people with this problem online who also mentioned a font manager, the missing system fonts FontExplorer was highlighting in red in Lion, and that FontExplorer seems a bit lost in Lion - when I cleaned the font caches, the window listing the font caches is blank.

Firefox was fine for me, but I never use it and never messed with the default fonts. Opera may be in the same boat, but I haven't checked.

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 21, 2011 8:44 AM in response to Duke126

Yeah, it's clear as mud, Duke:

Gee, at this point we only have 4 strong suspects who are responsible either alone, all togther, or any combo: Safari, Lion, insert your own font of choice here, and FontExplorer

moskoo

Level 1

12 points

Jul 21, 2011 8:55 AM in response to Tim3308

I'm using Fontagent Pro and I have the same problem.

csob

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 9:06 AM in response to moskoo

I have a ton of constantly open fonts running from Suitcase Fusion.

Any random page was displaying the "squared A" on majority of fonts.

Downloaded beta version of Onyx.

Ran font maintenance for System/Users (and not Adobe, etc.)--it deleted font cache.

Restarted.

All fonts displaying perfectly.

So far so good, didn't think fix would be this simple.

P.S. "Squared A's" were appearing in Safari only, Firefox exhibited no issues.

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 21, 2011 9:08 AM in response to csob

Same here, csob w/ safari only. Onyx cleared up the block A's (see, "holing my breath post")... but it came back after some restarts (or time?). Onyx cleared it again....

csob

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2011 9:14 AM in response to Tim3308

BTW, thanks Tim3308 for Onyx tip--I had no idea it existed.

I've been randomly surfing to see if the problem comes back, but it seems fine. I guess only time will tell on my end too.

Installed on my brand new MacBook Pro last night and this issue did not appear there (only on 2009 iMac) I assume because I am not running Suitcase on it.

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 21, 2011 10:16 AM in response to csob

I paid for "Cocktail(onyx like)" quite some time ago. It's Lion beta did not clear it up, the free Onyx beta did...?

Update: I decided to put FontExplorer Pro 3.0 to work some more (not gonna punt on it at this point -- I have tons of fonts, and it is a heavy duty font manager. It sure seemed to be the most recommended out there... but we know stuff happens). It cleans caches too, did that. I also smoked out some fonts that had been put in the system by apps and gave all font duplicates the boot (that FEP found). One of the duplicates was indeed Myriad Pro which Safari was having a tough time w/ on tuaw.com and macperformance guide site.

After several restarts which seemd to let the problem back in(as mentioned before, logging out as a user and then back in helped the "block A problem) , everyhting seems to be okay (looks up and denotes the current time of 12:13 CT😉) for now...

Tim3308 Author

Level 3

556 points

Jul 21, 2011 4:53 PM in response to Tim3308

Hours and restarts, etc. later, the fix of getting rid of duplicate fonts is holding w/ Safari 5.1... working well, no "blocks w/ A's"

Safari in Lion not displaying site's header copy...