HT201375: OS X: Fonts included with Mavericks

Learn about OS X: Fonts included with Mavericks
Almeister7

Q: Has anyone found a solution to the "Mavericks will not install new fonts" Issue? Has apple even admitted it yet?

Question is simple enough, Oh and by the way, my system is NOT what this forum page has decided to tell me that it is (no way evident to change it).

MacBook Pro, Macbook Pro 5,5 - OS 10.8.5

Posted on Feb 14, 2014 4:30 AM

Close

Q: Has anyone found a solution to the "Mavericks will not install new fonts" Issue? Has apple even admitted it yet?

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Page 1 Next
  • by arthur,

    arthur arthur Feb 14, 2014 5:56 AM in response to Almeister7
    Level 5 (5,193 points)
    iBooks
    Feb 14, 2014 5:56 AM in response to Almeister7
    1. I just installed a font and it works fine. Therefore you are probably having a problem with your own Mavericks installation, most likely due to some old/bad/incompatible third-party software or corrupted fonts that you have installed.
    2. I'm not sure why Apple would have to admit that you are having a problem with your own OSX installation.
    3. Go up to the top of the post where it says "Welcome, Almeister7" and click on your name. You'll see a box that says My Products. Towards the bottom there will be a line for your MBP that you can delete, and then add a new line including your current OS. Should be simple enough.
    4. It would help to give us more information. Etresoft: EtreCheck is a free app developed by one of the contributors to this forum which will generate a system report on your computer. If you can paste the report here we can take a look and see what might be the problem.
  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 14, 2014 6:19 PM in response to arthur
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 14, 2014 6:19 PM in response to arthur

    Hi Arthur,

     

    Thanks for taking the time to reply.

     

    1. I am glad your Mavericks doesn't have the problem. I am sure there are a lot of Mavericks out there that don't have the problem, and yes, you are correct, I, along with ALL of the other people that are complaing of this problem all over the internet, including this support forum itself, are having problems with our own Mavericks installations.

     

    2. Agreed, Apple doesn't have a good track record of admitting to the bugs in its Operationg Systems, but don't worry, Microsoft is just as bad. Technology is about making money after all.

     

    3. Thanks for the instructions for updating my profile.

     

    4. I took the precaution of removing all of my data from this machine. and wiped its harddrive.

    I did a fresh install of Snow Leopard (the OS it came with), upgraded to Mountain Lion, and then upgraded to Mavericks before doing anything at all to the machine, and before installing anything on it.

     

    So with this Fresh, brand new install of Mavericks (I dont trust upgrades - for good reason) I installed Open Office, Adobe Creative Suit CS6, Google Chrome, Filezilla, Firefox and Thunderbird, and Microsoft Remote Desktop client.

    That's it.

     

    The font that will not install is any of the fonts from the Univers family.

    We have had this font in our office for the seven years I have worked there. It installs fine on all Macs from Tiger (10.4) to Mountain Lion (10.8) (I have just finished tesing this on a number of these machines).

    We have one other mavericks machine but this font was already installed on it when it was upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks so it works.

     

    here is the report from EtreCheck:

     

    Hardware Information:

        MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

        MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

        1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

        8 GB RAM

     

    Video Information:

        NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

     

    System Software:

        OS X 10.9.1 (13B42) - Uptime: 0 days 0:53:47

     

    Disk Information:

        Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02 disk0 : (160.04 GB)

            EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

            Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 159.18 GB (30.03 GB free)

            Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

     

        HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 

     

    USB Information:

        Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

     

        Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

     

        Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

     

        Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

     

        Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

            Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

     

    FireWire Information:

     

    Thunderbolt Information:

     

    Kernel Extensions:

     

    Startup Items:

        HWNetMgr: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr

        HWPortDetect: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect

        StartOuc: Path: /Library/StartupItems/StartOuc

     

    Problem System Launch Daemons:

     

    Problem System Launch Agents:

     

    Launch Daemons:

        [System]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link

        [System]    com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist 3rd-Party support link

        [System]    com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist 3rd-Party support link

     

    Launch Agents:

        [System]    com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link

        [System]    com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist 3rd-Party support link

        [System]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist 3rd-Party support link

     

    User Launch Agents:

        [not loaded]    com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link

        [not loaded]    com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link

        [not loaded]    com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[...]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

        [not loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link

     

    User Login Items:

        iTunesHelper

     

    Internet Plug-ins:

        AdobeExManDetect: Version: AdobeExManDetect 1.1.0.0 - SDK 10.7 3rd-Party support link

        FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.44 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link

        Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

        AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 10.1.9 3rd-Party support link

        AdobePDFViewer: Version: 10.1.9 3rd-Party support link

        Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.44 - SDK 10.6 Cannot contact Adobe

        JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 51 3rd-Party support link

        QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

        iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

     

    Audio Plug-ins:

        BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

        AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

        AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

        iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

     

    3rd Party Preference Panes:

        Flash Player  3rd-Party support link

        Java  3rd-Party support link

     

    Bad Fonts:

        None

     

    Old Applications:

        dynamiclinkmanager:    Version: 6.0.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

            /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/dynamiclink/CS6/dynamiclinkmanager.app

        dynamiclinkmediaserver:    Version: 6.0.1 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link

            /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/dynamiclinkmediaserver/1.0/dynamiclinkmediaserver.app

     

    Time Machine:

        Time Machine not configured!

     

    Top Processes by CPU:

             4%    WindowServer

             2%    EtreCheck

             1%    firefox

             0%    ouc

             0%    loginwindow

     

    Top Processes by Memory:

        369 MB    firefox

        188 MB    thunderbird

        147 MB    soffice

        147 MB    com.apple.IconServicesAgent

        115 MB    mds_stores

     

    Virtual Memory Information:

        5.24 GB    Free RAM

        1.46 GB    Active RAM

        490 MB    Inactive RAM

        584 MB    Wired RAM

        394 MB    Page-ins

        0 B    Page-outs

     

    This is a lot more information than has been provided by almost all of the other posts on all the forums I have been reading about this problem, and most of the posts have a lot of people chiming in saying,

    "It works fine for me, so it must not be a problem".

     

    Not a lot of help has been forthcoming for the others in this same situation that I have been reading of, and most are resorting to Third Party Programs in an attempt to get fonts installed, all with varying degrees of success.

     

    I am not willing to use a third party program to do something the operationg system should be able to do itself.

     

    I have tried pasting the fonts themselves into all of the various fonts folders in the OS, to no avail.

     

    I will be very interested to hear what you make of the information I have supplied.

     

    Thank you again for your reply. I look forward to hearing back from you.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 14, 2014 6:32 PM in response to Almeister7
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 14, 2014 6:32 PM in response to Almeister7

    I would think your issue would be attended to more quickly and by knowledgable people if you changed the attitude that is so glaringly obvious in both your posts.

     

    I'll simply give you Apple's feedback line and wish you all the best.

     

    FEEDBACK    http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

     

     

    Good Luck

     

    Pete

  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 14, 2014 7:51 PM in response to petermac87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 14, 2014 7:51 PM in response to petermac87

    Thanks for your help Peter.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Feb 14, 2014 8:45 PM in response to Almeister7
    Level 10 (207,958 points)
    Applications
    Feb 14, 2014 8:45 PM in response to Almeister7

    How are you trying to install the font, and what exactly happens when you try? Include the complete, exact text of any error message you see. Are you having trouble only with one font, or with all?

  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 15, 2014 1:41 AM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 15, 2014 1:41 AM in response to Linc Davis

    Hi Linc,

     

    I have tried all of the ways I can think of. All fail with no error mesage at all.

     

    The fonts were emailed to me in a zipped folder.

    The fonts are not showing a file extension (not uncommon with Apple and has not prevented install on other machines in the office with different OS).

     

    1. From Font book. On "All Fonts", click '+' for add font. browse to folder containing the Univers fonts, click open. Nothing happens. No error message, Font book switches to 'User Collection', font is not listed, font is not instaled.

     

    2. From Font book. On "All Fonts", click '+' for add font. browse to folder containing the Univers fonts, try to choose a single font, they are greyed and Fontbook will not choose one.

     

    3. Browse to folder containing fonts. Right click one and choose 'Open with' - Fontbook is not listed, choose 'other' Browse to Fontbook, it is greyed, change from 'Recommended' to ' All Applications', Choose font book, there is a very quick flash of a small dialogue box that looks like it could be a "copying to" dialogue box (to fast to see. Fontbook, switched from 'ALl Fonts' to 'User' collection. No error message, Font not listed, font not installed.

     

    4. Copy and paste the fonts into:

       a). ~/Library/fonts

       b). MacintoshHD/System/Library/fonts

       c). MacintoshHD/Library/fonts

    Restarting Fontbook after ever attempt as I have read alot that Fontbook, often wont show newly installed fonts in Mavericks until it is restarted.

     

    5. Double click font - Fontbook takes focus, switches to User collection, there is a brief flash of some semi-opaque image, small, square with blues and blacks, trying to expand into existance (pretty effects), which it completely fails to do and is gone before you can see what it was going to be.

     

    I have then repeated all of these steps with copies of the fonts with file extensions added.

    ttf

    otf (pretty sure Univers is not Open Type)

    pfm

    giving the fonts a file extension allowed Fontbook to open the fonts, but again, copying dialogue box (quick flash of) no error message, font not listed, font not installed.

    tried drag and drop, no dice.

    Even pasted the fonts into InDesign's own fonts folder (this has limited and completely random chances of success, but worth a try). no dice

     

    In older Apple OS's you would at least get a dialogue box saying there may be a problem with the indicated fonts, would you like to continue, but now, nothing at all.

  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 15, 2014 2:06 AM in response to Almeister7
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 15, 2014 2:06 AM in response to Almeister7

    Also creating a forked resource:

    cat "UniveBla/..namedfork/rsrc" > "UniveBla.dfont"

    doesnot work. a couple of quick flashes then nothing.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Feb 15, 2014 7:10 AM in response to Almeister7
    Level 10 (207,958 points)
    Applications
    Feb 15, 2014 7:10 AM in response to Almeister7

    The fonts are not showing a file extension

     

    It may be hidden. Open the Info window and see whether it's there. Also check that the files are not empty (size zero.)

     

    If the files are not empty and there is no filename extension, you'll have to find out what kind of font this is and add the appropriate extension.

  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 15, 2014 1:08 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 15, 2014 1:08 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Hi Linc,

     

    The file extensions are not hidden, the file sizes are not zero (286 bytes).

     

    re: adding file extensions, please read the above two replies (also afm).

     

    I am not aware of any other files extensions for fonts, but if you think of one that you think might help, please let me know.

     

    Not having a file extensions has not prevented any of these fonts from installing on all other machines and OS's.

     

    Has Mavericks removed the dialogue boxes that were present in Fontbook for other OS's?

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Feb 15, 2014 2:46 PM in response to Almeister7
    Level 10 (207,958 points)
    Applications
    Feb 15, 2014 2:46 PM in response to Almeister7

    That's a proprietary font distributed by Linotype and Adobe. If you got it from anywhere else, it's either pirated or fake and should not be used. The real font could be in OTF, TT, or PS format, not dfont.

  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 15, 2014 3:13 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 15, 2014 3:13 PM in response to Linc Davis

    HI Linc,

     

    Univers Font Family was purchased from Linotype in 1997 (The license holders of the font since its creation in 1954)

     

    .tt file extension is not recognised by OS and doesn't work.

    .ps file extension is recognised as postscript file but is not openable by Fontbook.

     

    as you have read in this thread, .otf was one of the first file extensions I tried.

     

    You seem pretty convinced that the problem is with the font itself, yet, as I say, I still have no problem installing this font on other Apple Machines ranging from Tiger to Snow Leopard.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Feb 15, 2014 3:19 PM in response to Almeister7
    Level 10 (207,958 points)
    Applications
    Feb 15, 2014 3:19 PM in response to Almeister7

    You wrote earlier:

     

    The fonts were emailed to me in a zipped folder.

     

    If you need the font, I suggest you buy it from one of the publishers. Good luck.

  • by Almeister7,

    Almeister7 Almeister7 Feb 15, 2014 3:31 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 15, 2014 3:31 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Hi Linc,

     

    Please read the reply above yours re: purchase of font.

     

    Thanks anyway.

  • by etresoft,

    etresoft etresoft Feb 15, 2014 3:33 PM in response to Almeister7
    Level 7 (29,173 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 15, 2014 3:33 PM in response to Almeister7

    Try the solution mentioned in this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5472641

Page 1 Next