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Mac OS X 10.3.5 (#10): Font issues; confirmed by Apple?; Printing problems; Safe Boot for loss of resolutions; more
Font issues; confirmed by Apple? MacFixIt reader John is one of many to report issues with certain fonts after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3.5. He is the first we've heard of, however, to receive a confirmation from Apple.
To recap, in most cases of this issue, documents containing the problematic fonts (when opened under Mac OS X 10.3.5) will display no text.
John writes "I am a graphic designer. We immediately had an issue with certain fonts after installing 10.3.5. Minion Expert from Adobe was the first. We have had a team of 8 designers using it for 6 months. Those who upgraded found that any file opened in Quark using Minion Expert could not be seen.
"Apple confirmed, after a long serious call, that 10.3.5 did indeed change the way character maps were read....they assured me the font was in error and had me call Adobe. The font works perfectly in Illustrator, Photoshop and any Adobe software, but not Quark, FileMaker or Word. Adobe said that their own products does not call on the Apple font technology, and uses its own to render fonts on screen. Since Minion Expert did work in there programs, they deemed the font fully functional.
"Long story short. 10.3.5 started this problem. Huge, huge problem for us. Many, many GBs of digital file now only work for 10.3.4 systems. ouch."
If you choose to revert to Mac OS X 10.3.4, your best bet in this scenario is to perform an archive and install process from the Panther CD/DVD, and then re-apply the Mac OS X 10.3.4 combo updater.
More printing problems; gimp-print We continue to receive reports of some printers not working after the Mac OS X 10.3.5 update. In some cases printers do not work in specific applications, and in others the printers are non-functional system-wide.
Reader Ilkka writs "For me everything else seems to work ok with 10.3.5. except printing from Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0 to my Epson Stylus Photo 1290. The Stylus Photo application starts normally and processes the print job, but nothing happens in the printer. Printing from Adobe Reader and other applications seems to work fine. Re-installing Acrobat didn't solve the problem."
Fred writes "Following the 10.3.5 update I'm unable to print to my HP DeskJet 1220 (USB) printer. Tried updating to hP v 2.5 printer software. NO luck. Now repairing permissions, reinstalling old printer software, trying each vs. of old HP software for possible functionality."
If you are having problems with your printer after updating to Mac OS X 10.3.5, we encourage you to contact your printer manufacturer and notify them of the problem. In many cases new driver updates are necessary, and manufacturers are generally more inclined to resolve these issues when a large number of users are reporting them.
In some cases, if your standard driver is not providing functionality in Mac OS X 10.3.5, an open-source set of drivers like gimp-print can do the trick. Check the Supported Printers page for your model.
Safe boot for loss of resolution settings Several users have described a problem where, after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.3.5, they are unable to use certain display resolutions, or their systems are "stuck" in a certain resolution.
This MacFixIt reader's case is typical "It restarted in an obscure resolution on my monitor (something like 640 x 480 which I never use) and when I switched to my usual resolution, my monitor went black and nothing would persuade it to come alive again, including, as suggested by an Apple tech, starting up off the original Panther install disk."
In many instances, simply restarting in Safe Mode (hold down the "Shift" key while starting up) allows the user to open System Preferences, enter the "Displays" pane and successfully change the screen resolution.
Subsequent, normal boots should retain the selected resolution.
More on DVD Player crashes We continue to cover a fairly widespread issue where Apple's DVD Player causes a system freeze when using attempting to play some media.
MacFixIt reader Steven Engle has made an interesting discovery casting doubt on a previous notion that the freezes might be caused by scratched or damaged media. Instead, it appears, there is a problem with the actual data contained on some discs:
"I ripped to disk using 'MacTheRipper' one of the problem disks. The operation was successful, no problems. With the problem DVD still in the drive, I stated up DVD Player. The system panicked immediately after I selected "Open VIDEO_TS Folder..." Once I restarted, and now with the problem disk not in the system, I did the same. It started playing, the system panicked two seconds later, the EXACT same spot that in panics when playing directly from the DVD. Leads me to suspect it is something in the data stream, not the physical DVD media."
If you are having a similar problem, please let us know.
FireWire drives, other devices not recognized; linked to specific drive cases? A number of readers are reporting loss of FireWire drives and other devices after the Mac OS X 10.3.5 update.
MacFixIt reader Jim writes "I'd like to report a major problem with 10.3.5: My firewire devices, including a ProTools 002R interface and a LaCie firewire drive, have failed to communicate with my G4. My drive does not mount, and the system is not recognizing either the drive or my audio interface. I notified Apple, and they told me they are trying to address the problem. "
Drew Vinal adds "I report my Mac 500 Mhz Dual G4 gigabit Mac running 10.3.5 the firewire no longer works after upgrading. No devices attached work. I reset the PRAM and repaired preferences with the disk utility."
Some readers report that this issue only occurs with certain drive cases. For instance, one reader found that removing a Maxtor drive from its original case and using another generic FireWire housing unit allowed the drive to be recognized. If you have a spare case handy, it's worth a shot.
Another solution that has been successful for FireWire recognition issues during past incremental Mac OS X updates: Disconnect all such devices from your Mac, apply the Mac OS X 10.3.5 combo updater, and then re-attach the devices after a restart.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
For more information on Mac OS X 10.3.5 problems and solutions, see our special report on the update.
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specifically some fonts will not render at all in Preview. I would open PDFs,
and get pages and pages of blank nothingness, dotted with the occasional
graphic. Yet the same PDF would open just fine in Adobe Acrobat (Reader or
Full). Thing that was odd, though, was that it didn't happen immediately. Only
after a few weeks of use did the fonts start disappearing. I had assumed it
was some piece of shareware I had installed, or an update to another piece of
software, but now I'm not so sure... i am beginning to suspect problems and
confusion between different font versions as they are kicked on and off by
various applications and/or the user, but that is based more off hunch than
anything else.
quick follow-up: now that i think about it, the reason i mention the repeated
font activation issue is that i have never seen the same issue at my home
computer, which runs all of the same software i use at work, and I have a
healthy font library at both locations. However, i have never bothered to
install a font management application of any sort at home... only at work. and
recently, i have kept the bulk of my most commonly used fonts kicked on
full-time, even through restarts, and i have not seen the problem come
back... but it is intermittent, so there's nothing saying it won't come back
tomorrow.
I've also had strange font problems. If I print to PS in AppleWorks, Helvetica behave as if it's not an installed font (strange symbols substitute for letters, Photoshop complains on opening the EPS, which I make from PS by adding a BoundingBox).
Also, in TeXShop, in some specific modes, all plain (non-bold, non-italics) Times fails to render (shows as white space).
What's odd is that very specific modes of use are required to trigger the problem. If I print to PDF from AppleWorks, for example, then use Adobe Reader to create a Postscript file, there is no problem.
the way character maps were read....they assured me the font was in error
and had me call Adobe.</i>
This is quite humorous, and I hope Apple is reading this, because one of the
fonts affected by this is the dfont version of Zapf Dingbats. This is an Apple
font!
You can see the problem
<a href="http://www.david-schwab.com/fonts/fonts.html">here</a>
.
David - most of the font issues that are illustrated on your page can be
resolved simply by purging your font caches and rebooting. I use the freeware
AppleScript application 'Cache Out X' to purge system, local and user caches
(do a Google search)...
one issue we instituted at the last place i worked was, if you were going to
have either a large library of fonts, or be swapping them out with other
people's fonts (like a service bureau), then either use a server/client system,
or, like we did, place your font library on a separate non-boot partition,
where "ignore permissions on this volume" is checked in the "get info"
window of the volume. the best of all worlds is to load from a locked volume,
but i don't know of any font utilities that play nicely with this type of set-up
anymore.
? Repair permissions on the startup drive.
? Unplug all Firewire devices, then open the Mac and press the logic board's reset button.
? If OS 9 is installed, here's something that worked for me once, on a Power Mac G4 AGP (I don't know why it worked): restart the Mac into 9, then OS X, and back and forth a couple times, and see if that helps.
? Reinstall the OS X Combo updater.
? The OS update may be unhappy about one or more of your RAM boards. Run DIMM First Aid to see if your Mac likes your RAM; if it doesn't, DIMM First Aid may be able to fix it. If it doesn't, remove all non-Apple RAM boards, power up the Mac, then check if the Firewire device works now; if it does, reinstall your RAM one board at a time. You may find that you just have to rearrange your RAM to get the Firewire device to work, or you may need to replace some RAM.
? You may have to reformat the drive (as long as it doesn't contain any data you need), using Apple's Disk Utility. Use its "zero all data" option.
? Run Apple Hardware Test (the proper version for your Mac model), and see what it says about the Mac. Sometimes just running its tests kick-starts Firewire to start working again.
Regarding the dropping Firewire issue, check out digidesign.com, as this
appears to be a known issue with OS 10.3.5.
"During our testing of 10.3.5, Digidesign has discovered an intermittent
problem when using FireWire drives. We strongly recommend that users
continue using 10.3.2 or 10.3.4 until Digidesign officially qualifies 10.3.5 for
use with Pro Tools. Although you may be able to use these systems with
10.3.5 with Pro Tools, these systems have not been officially qualified by
Digidesign."
probably an Apple problem, especially in light of the non-specific font
handling improvements that were listed for 10.3.5.
The same goes for FireWire, which was supposed to be improved.
As for the fellow having printing problems with his HP 1220C, I hate to be the
bearer of bad news, but mine works fine in 10.3.5 on a 1GHz Dual G4.
However, I do have occasional problems with printers and other USB devices
failing to be recognized, requiring me to disconnect and reconnect the USB
cable.
This pattern has followed every update of OS X as far back as I can remember
- every time they fix one thing they break something else. Some Microsoft
spies must have infiltrated the Apple compound, somehow, spreading their
know-not-how.
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Don't anthropomorphize computers.
They hate that.
- by hEADcRASH August 24, 2004 11:30 AM PDT
- If MacTheRipper skipped over damaged-disk errors (much as iTunes does
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(12 Comments)with damaged CDs) and saved out the VOB file that way, then it would still
play back correctly (although you would expect and audio and/or video
glitch at the damaged location (in the VOB file)).
Have you tried it in a different Mac and/or dedicated DVD player?
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