Fixing Fonts in Snow Leopard 10.6.4

by Donna McMaster  |  June 18th, 2010
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If you’re running Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and do the 10.6.4 update that was released this week, you may run into problems with fonts. Ron and I both had Firefox crashes related to the problem, and my BBEdit fonts suddenly changed as well.


I went online and did searches for this (widely reported) problem and fixes. Evidently the problem is not with the OS itself, but with fonts that are broken or duplicated. It’s not clear why they are suddenly causing problems in the new release, but the remedy is to fix the fonts, not ditch the upgrade. Fixes that worked for me:

  1. Run Apple’s built-in Font Book. Under Collection, click on All Fonts, then select all the fonts in your library:


    Font Book screen view


    Now go to the File menu and choose Validate Fonts. Do what needs doing to remove duplicates and broken fonts.


    This may have been sufficient to fix the problem, but being OCD — and having hundreds of fonts from myriad sources, all managed by FontExplorer Pro — I did three more steps that were recommended by folks out there on the Internets:


  2. Ran FontDoctor over the system fonts; all okay. Then I ran it over my entire font collection and threw out a bunch of junk so that I won’t be introducing more broken fonts into my active font folders.

  3. Cleared the Firefox cache. (Firefox -> Preferences -> Advanced)

  4. Closed all running applications, then used the Terminal to type in the magic incantation to clear the system font cache:  sudo atsutil databases -remove

  5. Immediately restarted my Mac.


All problems cleared up and my fonts are all fresh and shiny clean.


For more information on this problem, see these Apple support forum threads: “10.6.4 Totally Destroys Your Fonts” and “Fonts got f***ed up after I updated to 10.6.4.” See also this quick overview on Mac font issues, and this awesomely detailed online manual on font management in Mac OS X.

Donna McMaster

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Reader comments (5)

 

Heh, I was just thinking when I got your email: that would make a great blog post. And it is. Thanks for sharing the good advice, Donna!


Lainie Turner | June 18, 2010

Nice!, Thanks Donna I was having some font issues.


Ron | June 19, 2010

Thanks, Lainie! I was a bit reluctant to dip my toe in the MAC blog … glad to see the water is friendly!

And Ron, hope this helps.


Donna McMaster | June 20, 2010

Oh, so THIS is why I’m still running OS10.4. I knew there was a reason!


Jeff Jimerson | June 25, 2010

Thanks. your solution fixed my problem.. I just did the fontsuitcase and the clearing cache part.


jessica Miller | July 16, 2010
 


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