Firefox 3 displays illegible fonts

Unicode (UTF-8) - should this be on Western?
Thanks
L

Hi Miles,

It really is a universal problem with 404 and 403 errors and when I print documents,

Take http://www.something.com/iodfhiosdfbdf for example. Rather than displaying the heading 'Not Found' in the browser window, it displays 'kçí cçì åÇ', however the actual tab header appears normally. When I copy and paste the nonsense section into word, it displays fine as 'Not Found'.

Similarly, when I print a document, the usual headers and footers (displaying page header, web address, meta tags etc) are replaced with these gibberish characters, all usually with accents on the top and various between capitals and lower case letters. The issue doesn't appear in IE or Safari, so it's definitely confined to FF.

I've noticed that when viewing certain pages, the font setting will flick across to Western, if that's any help?

Thanks,
L

I'm getting the same problem but in this box

Hi,

I've got all the right settings and fonts.

It seems odd, all the sites I'm having problems with, were all working fin on FF2 and IE... just seem to throw a wobbly when I use FF3.

Thanks
Jake

Hi, Attached is this editor showing up weird text.... any ideas?

Here is a screen shot

Yes I'm running Windows XP Pro

I'm having the same problems the other users described here since installing Firefox 3. Large Helvetica text on some significant number of sites is displaying as these nonsense characters. I'm on Windows XP, and I've tried:

* Setting my character encoding to Auto-Detect > Universal.
* Switching the character encoding between Unicode and Western while I'm viewing a Web page.
* Starting Firefox in Safe Mode and looking at the problem pages.
* Adjusting my default font settings.

None of those steps resolved the problem. Other folks are reporting similar problems in this thread, but I wasn't able to follow some of their fixes, and those that I could follow didn't help.

I use three computers, one running Linux, one Windows XP, and one Mac OS X. I have FF3 installed on all three, but this problem only affects the XP machine.

Unchecking the "Allow websites to specify their own fonts" box corrects the problem insofar as it allows me to read the illegible text, but it introduces the (IMO) larger problem of making the Web typographically unattractive.

I'm attaching screenshots.

Is Mozilla working on a fix for this?

Josh, I've got the same problem (can't see what I'm currently typing - hope there aren't any typos!)....

No difference between Unicode and Western. No extensions installed (not even AdBlock)...

The links you provide at the Mozilla site (e.g., http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/T... ) don't seem to be working....

Anyway, Im running Firfox 3.0.3, on Vista x64. The problems started with the version version of 3 that I installed.

Screenshot for ESPN is attached.

I've got a million variations of Helvetica installed on my machine - as a graphic designer I'm not about to get rid of them. No problems in any other browser.

I haven't found any solution to this via Mozilla forums - incl. tat linked by Matt above.

I've got the exact same problem, on the same sites as are screen-capped above. (And this input box). I've uninstalled all the Helvetica fonts but one, which says it's in use and can't be uninstalled. Any suggestions? If anyone has a solution, please post!

Hi Firefox team. I am a web developer too and helv is essential for me - I cant just turn it off. I have the same problems - Helvetica is OK when its at a specific size but as soon as the size changes - it turns to mush. I have swappwd out my helv fonts for Agfa copies and the problem is better - but still there. THese fonts work on my widescreen laptop but ont on my Syncmaster 245B - could it be resolutions?
This bug is over 1 year old!
Getting tired

I checked to see if I have all of the fonts you lolist in another area of required fonts (arial/times/courier) and though I have them all, they are listed on my computer as "open type" fonts rather than ttf.

As I type this I can't see what I am typing -- it is all greeked text in the box.

I don't have this problem with Explorer so I would think it wouldn't be so difficult to fix.

I also don't see any replies from an employee recently -- is anyone monitoring this board??? This is VERY frustrating and UNSOLVED!!!

Here is what it looks like as I type:

Seems to be a font problem. I swapped out Helvetica with another copy - and found that though the issue did not go away - it was improved. My laptop which also has FF3 doesn't have this problem - nor do any of the other 3 machines I have.
Looking around on the web - I have seen loads of posts for this problem - its been around for ages and its about time the FF team fixed it.

Ok, now this is weird - try visiting http://spyremag.com/5-ways-to-break-y...

This is what it shows for me:



I looked at the actual coding of the site, and there's no difference between items 4 and 5. They're both simply paragraph tags. Strange, strange, strange.

I have (had) the same problem. That spyremag page has a mess of font-family declarations in the css, including heltevica (sic).
The text cleared up when all references to helvetica were removed from the css. I deleted my helvetica font (windows) and the problem was cured. On examing the helv.ttf font I had, all the Property information was in chinese symbols so maybe that had something to do with it. Once I hold of another helvetica I guess I'll find out...

Well, there are several references in the Mozilla forums about Helvetica causing this problem, but always as a type 1 font (with the adobe .pfm extension). Mine was a windows truetype.ttf font.
Anyway a bit (torrent) later I installed helvetica (regular, bold, oblique and bold/oblique) as type one fonts and all seems fine now.

Maybe Firefox could supply a set of good, working Helvetica fonts to users who are having this problem!

same here.. cantr even see what i am writing in this post!

links that josh has provided to "fix" the problem link to Page cannot be found (404)

There hasn't been an employee reply in a VERY long time. Guess they don't care?

This is the site that Mozilla's support page pointed me to, so I would hope that they were helping here. Also, one of the avatars has "EMPLOYEE" written on it, so I guessed that employees managed this site. Obviously incorrectly, so excuuuse me. There are a lot of frustrated people on this page who are not getting answers, and I guess I don't know who to contact to get this fixed then.

And this website reads "Real conversations with company employees and other customers who will answer your questions about the products and services you use" -- so it is NOT crazy to assume that real employees of Mozilla would be lookin in on these threads.

I had the same problem – but with some of my emails! Annnooyyyying!
But I fixed it by changing the font from "Times" to "Times New Roman" as my default serif font under FF Preferences. Mac OS X.

Does anyone have this problem with the new Google browser?

I know this is an old thread, but I'm still having this problem. Does anyone have a good fix (other than uninstalling fonts).

(Oh man, the crazy text shows up in this text box... the irony is delicious!)

Ditto, unchecking the "allow websites to supply their own fonts" has now allowed me to see what I'm writing in this box, but of course, the entire internet looks hideous now. Are there any fixes in store?

And so the story continues. I can't read what I'm writing either. Have installed every type of fix I can find. Fonts don't work. Yes unchecking the the "allow websites to supply own fonts" works, but like AlbuteroGonzales says, the internet looks hideous. I am runningVista x64 as well. What is going on????
(Interesting enough, I can read the "how does this make you feel?" text that I write below.)

Hi all,

try this forum post for answers: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.p...
long story short - try this program: http://fix-fonts-folder.en.softonic.com/

That actually helped -- I downloaded the file, ran it and saw that about half of my fonts have some problem or another (but just ignored that since they work where I want them to) but Helvetica was one listed as "corrupt". I then opened my fonts folder and just deleted the Helvetica files I had in there. Then I looked up the possibility of replacing them and found that they cost $30 per style or hundreds of dollars for sets. Hmm.

So I came online to see what happened with those fonts deleted and not replaced. Well, lo and behold I can see what I am typing! And I checked the other web pages that always had problems, and they look fine now.

It is frustrating to have to delete a file that works fine everywhere else, but since I have a faux-Helvetica font (I use a free font group called "Halvett" for my design jobs and it works fine), I hope that will be ok.

All I did was delete all Helvetica files manually in the fonts folder. Problem solved! I was afraid to do that earlier because I assumed it would cause a host of new problems, but so far nothing that I can see. Good luck to everyone else!

I ran Fix Fonts Folder software and also found corrupt font files. Followed your advice Cheryl and just deleted Helvetica.ttf and Helvetica Bold.ttf, and left the rest of the Helvetica fonts untouched and everything is fixed!
What a relief! Good luck to everyone else!

Glad this is helping some people, but we still don't know the cause, and I see that "The company has a solution in progress." Might want to check back to get any updates...

That "The company has a solution in progress" note has been up there a while, hasn't it? I think they've either forgotten or don't really care -- maybe they don't get that many complaints about this.