mail displaying incorrect characters from the alphabet- 10.4.9 update

Question

mail displaying incorrect characters from the alphabet- 10.4.9 update

I just updated to 10.4.9 and mac mail is jumbling both alphabet characters displayed in my old email messages (only for messages from certain people) and when I type. My alphabet for a new message is:

OPcdefghijklNMoBqrstuvwxyz

the a=o, b=p, m=n, n=m, o=a, p=b. literally when I hit those characters on the keyboard the other characters come up, but only in mac mail.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Desktop G5, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Mar 26, 2007 9:58 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 26, 2007 11:05 AM in response to Jonathan Reeb

I’ve seen it reported before and I have no idea what could cause something like that to happen in Mail but not in other applications.

Try this to check whether the problem is system-wide:

1. Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts and create a new user account for testing purposes.

2. Either log out of your main user account or just quit Mail so that it does not interfere with the other user account.

3. Log in as the newly created user and set up Mail anew there.

4. For spam-related security reasons, go to Preferences > Viewing and disable Display remote images in HTML messages if it’s enabled.

5. To avoid messages being accidentally removed from the server while testing, if you set up a POP account, go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Advanced and disable Remove copy from server after retrieving a message if it’s enabled.

6. Check whether the problem also happens when logged in as another user.

Do you have any Mail plug-ins or system utilities that could interfere with Mail? In the Finder, go to each of the following folders (if they exist). What do you see there?

/Library/InputManagers/
~/Library/InputManagers/
/Library/Mail/Bundles/
~/Library/Mail/Bundles/

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user’s home folder. You can easily locate any of the folders referred to in this post by copying the folder path here, doing Go > Go to Folder in the Finder, and pasting the folder path there.

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Answer 2

Mar 26, 2007 11:22 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Thanks for your reply,

I was advised to the same type of procedure in another forum and determined it is not a system wide issue. I created a new user account logged in and setup my mail. There is no longer a keyboard mapping problem.

I went back into my main account and deleted the following: the user/libary/preferences/com.apple.mail file
everything in user/library/mail folder
everything in user/libary/caches/mail folder

Then I re-setup mail and still am having the issue.

The strangest thing about this issue is that some messages are displaying incorrect characters as well. But only from certain people emailing me. Example: all the mail from one person displays the same keyboard mapping errors, but not messages from other people.

If this is an issue with a user preference file, I can't find the corrupted file. Are there any known viruses that can cause this?

Also, all of the folders you mentioned do not exist in my library(s).

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Answer 3

Mar 26, 2007 11:26 AM in response to Jonathan Reeb

You’re welcome.

I wonder whether this could be a font issue. Take a look at the following article:

Font Management in Mac OS X Tiger and Panther

Font Book (included with Mac OS X) can be used to validate fonts and resolve duplicates.

Get rid of Helvetica Fractions and Times Phonetic if you have any of those fonts installed.

A simple troubleshooting procedure for this kind of problems is to start up in Safe Mode -- see Undoing Font Book.

Read the following article for general troubleshooting and cache-cleaning procedures:

Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption

In particular, be sure to verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), and to read this as well:

Side effects of System cache cleaning

In addition to the cache-cleaning utilities mentioned there, you may also consider OnyX or Cache Out X, which are free, although for this particular problem Font Finagler is probably the most appropriate.

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Answer 4

Mar 27, 2007 6:49 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Still not quite sure what the problem is.

I have downloaded and installed both onyX and font finagler and ran the cache cleaning. With onyX I cleaned application, font, system and kernel caches.

problem still exists.

I booted in safe mode and the problem went away. I am not sure where to go from here, is there a way to apply the safe boot settings, or delete files that safe boot is not using upon startup?

Thanks again for your help.

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Answer 5

Mar 27, 2007 7:04 AM in response to Jonathan Reeb

Well, if you look at what starting up in Safe Mode does, the most likely cause of the problem is a font installed in any of the folders where Mac OS X looks for fonts except /System/Library/Fonts/, or a startup item (/Library/StartupItems/), or one of the items that appear in Apple Menu > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items...

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Answer 6

Mar 27, 2007 7:41 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

FOUND IT!

HeveticaInaHamper = deleted!

Mail works fine now.

Thanks so much for your help David.

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Answer 7

Mar 27, 2007 8:12 AM in response to Jonathan Reeb

You’re welcome.

Glad to know and thanks for the feedback. I’ll bookmark this thread in case someone else reports the same problem again in the future.

Where was the font located? Do you know how/when did that font get there?

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